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Senior U.S. Diplomats, Journalists, Academics and Secretaries of Defense Say: the U.S. Provoked Russia in Ukraine

Progressive Memes, by Donald A. Smith, PhD 3 June 24

It took some years for Americans to realize they’d been lied to about the war in Vietnam. Thanks to the publication of the Pentagon Papers, and thanks to the antiwar movement, Americans eventually learned about the injustices and failures of that war.

Likewise, it took several years after the starts of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for Americans to realize they’d been lied to about those wars as well.

Americans are just now starting to realize that they’ve been lied to about the war in Ukraine. (The propaganda effort has been quite effective, with the New York Times, in particular, acting as a mouthpiece for the government’s position.) More and more mainstream publications are exposing the lies, and a majority of Americans now oppose further arming of Ukraine.

This essay is a summary of what the U.S. government has been hiding about the war in Ukraine, with links to sources for further information.

According to Brown University’s Costs of War project, U.S. military actions since 9/11 directly killed over 900,000 people,  with an additional 3.5 million people dying from indirect effects.  The wars cost Americans at least $8 trillion and displaced over 38 million people from their homes. The U.S. spends over a trillion dollars a year on its military, if you count all expenditures.

If we go back to the 1960s, the number killed by U.S. wars includes the several million killed in the Vietnam war, the approximately 1 million killed by U.S. support for Indonesian military’s attacks on left wing groups, and the hundreds of thousands, at least, killed in proxy wars and government overthrows in Latin America.

The wars, overthrows, and associated sanctions caused mass migrations worldwide — particularly in Europe and at the southern U.S. border — and destabilized politics. Yet almost nobody (except for whistleblowers) was held accountable for these disasters; indeed, many of the same people are in Congress or work for the government or the weapons industry.

Moreover, the U.S. government lied about almost all the wars — in particular, about the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but also about the war in Yugoslovia, as documented in Harper’s Magazine and here. (In short, the Kosovo Liberation Army that the U.S. supported was, basically, a terrorist organization funded by the CIA, and U.S. propaganda greatly overstated the nobility of the U.S. intervention.)

So, it should come as no surprise that our government is lying now about the war in Ukraine. Specifically, claims by President Biden and others that the Russian invasion was “unprovoked” are greatly exaggerated.

Read what these diplomats, secretaries of Defense, journalists, academics, and politicians have to say:

Former U.S. Ambassador to the USSR Jack Matlock says in Ukraine: Tragedy of a Nation Divided:

“Interference by the United States and its NATO allies in Ukraine’s civil struggle has exacerbated the crisis within Ukraine, undermined the possibility of bringing the two easternmost provinces back under Kyiv’s control, and raised the specter of possible conflict between nuclear-armed powers. Furthermore, in denying that Russia has a ‘right’ to oppose extension of a hostile military alliance to its national borders, the United States ignores its own history of declaring and enforcing for two centuries a sphere of influence in the Western hemisphere.”

Diplomat and historian George Kennan, quoted in Thomas Friedman’s This Is Putin’s War. But America and NATO Aren’t Innocent Bystanders, discussing NATO expansion:

“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves.”

William J. Perry, Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton, wrote How the US Lost Russia – and How We Can Restore Relations in Sept. of 2022:

“Many have pointed to the expansion of NATO in the mid-1990s as a critical provocation. At the time, I opposed that expansion, in part for fear of the effect on Russian-U.S. relations….Still, the first step in finding a solution [to the war in Ukraine] is acknowledging the problem and recognizing that our actions have contributed to that hostility.”

Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush, in We Always Knew the Dangers of NATO Expansion:

“[T]rying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching, … recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests.”

Ambassador Michael Gfoeller and David H. Rundell: in Newsweek‘s Lessons From the US Civil War Show Why Ukraine Can’t Win:

“Before the war, far right Ukrainian nationalist groups like the Azov Brigade were soundly condemned by the US Congress. Kiev’s determined campaign against the Russian language is analogous to the Canadian government trying to ban French in Quebec. Ukrainian shells have killed hundreds of civilians in the Donbas and there are emerging reports of Ukrainian war crimes. The truly moral course of action would be to end this war with negotiations rather than prolong the suffering of the Ukrainian people in a conflict they are unlikely to win without risking American lives.”

Christopher Caldwell: in the New York Times‘ The War in Ukraine May Be Impossible to Stop. And the US Deserves Much of the Blame:

“In 2014 the United States backed an uprising – in its final stages a violent uprising – against the legitimately elected Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych, which was pro-Russian.”

Chas W. Freeman, former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and a Lifetime Director of the Atlantic Council, says in The Many Lessons of the War in Ukraine: “Less than a day after the US-engineered coup that installed an anti-Russian regime in Kyiv in 2014, Washington formally recognized the new regime… The United States and NATO began a multi-billion-dollar effort to reorganize, retrain, and re-equip Kyiv’s armed forces. The avowed purpose was to enable Kyiv to reconquer the Donbas and eventually Crimea…. Crimea was Russian-speaking and had several times voted not to be part of Ukraine.” And: “From 2014 to 2022, the civil war in Donbas took nearly 15,000 lives.” Freeman says that the U.S. undermined several possible peace deals. “Ukraine is being eviscerated on the altar of Russophobia” but Russia has not, after all, been weakened. See this.

William J. Burns, then Ambassador to Russia, current director of the CIA, wrote in a 2008 cable, as revealed by Wikileaks:

Foreign Minister Lavrov and other senior officials have reiterated strong opposition, stressing that Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat. NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains “an emotional and neuralgic” issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.

MFA: NATO Enlargement “Potential Military Threat to Russia”

Thomas Friedman: in the New York Times‘ This Is Putin’s War. But America and NATO Aren’t Innocent Bystanders:

“The mystery was why the US – which throughout the Cold War dreamed that Russia might one day have a democratic revolution and a leader who, however haltingly, would try to make Russia into a democracy and join the West – would choose to quickly push NATO into Russia’s face when it was weak. A very small group of officials and policy wonks at that time, myself included, asked that same question, but we were drowned out.”America and NATO Aren’t Innocent Bystanders [from the title]

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy said in an interview in 2014:

“With respect to Ukraine, we have not sat on the sidelines. We have been very much involved. Members of the Senate have been there, members of the State Department who have been on the square …. I really think that the clear position of the United States has been in part what has helped lead to this change in regime…. I think it was our role, including sanctions and threats of sanctions, that forced, in part, Yanukovich from office.”

Henry Kissinger in an interview with The Wall Street Journal:

“We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to.”

Neoconservative Robert Kagan writes in an otherwise hawkish Foreign Affairs essay from May, 2022, The Price of Hegemony: Can America Learn to Use its Power?:

“Although it is obscene to blame the United States for Putin’ inhumane attack on Ukraine, to insist that the invasion was entirely unprovoked is misleading. …. the invasion of Ukraine is taking place in a historical and geopolitical context in which the United States has played and still plays the principal role, and Americans must grapple with this fact.”

Fiona Hill, former official at the U.S. National Security Council during the administration of George W. Bush, in the New York Times’ Putin has the U.S. right where he wants it:

“At the time, I was the national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia, part of a team briefing Mr. Bush. We warned him that Mr. Putin would view steps to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke pre-emptive Russian military action. But ultimately, our warnings weren’t heeded.”

Pope Francis in Yahoo News’ Pope Francis Says NATO Started War in Ukraine by “Barking at Putin’s Door”:

The real “scandal” of Putin’s war is NATO “barking at Putin’s door.”

James W. Carden, journalist and former adviser to the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission at the U.S. Department of State, in Simone Weil Center’s America’ Crisis of Reality and Realism: A Symposium (Part I):

“The de facto alliance of Ukrainian westernizing liberals and the fascist Ukrainian far-Right which together drove the so-called Revolution of Dignity in 2013-14 ignored their obligation to respect the democratic process.”

John J. Mearsheimer, University of Chicago

“The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path, and the end result is that Ukraine is going to be wrecked.” (2015)

Former Ambassador Thomas Graham, who served under six U.S. presidents and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in Was the Collapse of US-Russia Relations Inevitable?: “US hubris and Russian paranoia undermined partnership.” After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a weakened Russia sought closer ties to the West and even helped George W. Bush fight the war on terror. But instead of helping Russia fight Chechen rebels, which Russia considered to be terrorists, the U.S. lent support to those rebels. The U.S. pressed its advantage, aggressively expanding NATO, instigating regime change operations in countries friendly to Russia, and undermining Russian energy exports.

Finally, in light of the growing problems with Russia in the former Soviet bloc, the US push in 2008 to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was ill-advised at best. It tied together the two strands of the Bush administration’s hedging policy—NATO expansion and Eurasian geopolitical pluralism—in a way guaranteed to provoke a powerful Russian backlash. Key allies, notably France and Germany, were adamantly opposed. Bush’s own ambassador in Moscow warned that extending an invitation to Ukraine would cross the “brightest of red lines” and elicit sharp condemnation across the political spectrum.

NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, in Opening remarks at the joint meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and the Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE):

Putin “went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.”

Stephen M. Walt, professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, in an essay in Foreign Policy:

“This war would have been far less likely if the United States had adopted a strategy of foreign-policy restraint…. The Biden Administration and its predecessors are far from blameless.”

Michael Brenner, professor at University of Pittsburgh, in How to Think about the Ukraine War after 18 Months:

“[T]he provocations as you enumerated them were very great. And whether there was any alternative for Russia other than this recourse to a military solution, is a difficult question.”

Richard Sakwa, Professor at Univ. of Kent and author of multiple books on Russia and Ukraine in Book Talk: The Lost Peace:

“The argument that the invasion was unprovoked is completely false.”

“The global north, once again, it’s got this obsession, obsessive tendency to fall into war, endlessly. So the global north clearly is shooting itself in the foot. Blowback is going to be massive.”

Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute in The US and NATO Helped Trigger the Ukraine War. It’s Not ‘Siding With Putin’ to Admit It:

“One can readily imagine how Americans would react if Russia, China, India, or another peer competitor admitted countries from Central America and the Caribbean to a security alliance that it led – and then sought to add Canada as an official or de facto military ally. It is highly probable that the United States would have responded by going to war years ago. Yet even though Ukraine has an importance to Russia comparable to Canada’s importance to the United States, our leaders expected Moscow to respond passively to the growing encroachment.They have been proven disastrously wrong, and thanks to their ineptitude, the world is now a far more dangerous place.”

Alfred de Zayas, a former senior lawyer with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, says in The Ukraine War in the Light of the UN Charter:

“The war in Ukraine did not start on 24 February 2022, but already in February 2014. The civilian population of the Donbas has endured continued shelling from Ukrainian forces since 2014, notwithstanding the Minsk Agreements. These attacks on Lugansk and Donetsk significantly increased in January-February 2022, as reported by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine.”

George Beebe, former director of the CIA’s Russia analysis group and former advisor to Dick Cheney, writes in When does NATO actually promote US interests?:

“NATO’s eastward expansion exacerbated the threat of Russian aggression that the alliance was originally intended to prevent. …. While not the sole cause of Medvedev’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the desire to block a Western military presence in these key states was a fundamental Kremlin motivation.”

Beebe said that NATO was unwilling to “respect Russia’s concerns.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

………………………………………………………….For copious detail about U.S. provocations see How the U.S. provoked Russia in Ukraine: A Compendium.

The propagandists who continue to push for arming Ukraine say that the people of Ukraine were eager to join the West and that the Maidan Revolution was a grassroots expression of pro-Western sentiment. Instead, there is evidence that the revolution was largely the creation of U.S. regime change meddling, aided by the so-called National Endowment for Democracy (a CIA offshoot); see the Compendium above for documentation. Certainly, most of the people in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea did not want closer ties with the West. (Carnegie Endowment for Peace and Foreign Affairs documented that a majority of the people of Crimea welcomed Russia’s annexation of their territory in 2014: Denis Volkov and Andrei Kolesnikov’s My Country, Right or Wrong: Russian Public Opinion on Ukraine (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 7, 2022); John O’Loughlin, Gerad Toal and Kristin M. Bakke’s To Russia With Love: A Majority of Crimeans are Still Glad for Their Annexation (Foreign Affairs, April 3, 2020).) Likewise, in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Syria, Libya, Chechnya and elsewhere, the U.S. instigated military and interference operations to bring down pro-Russian governments.

So, the U.S. intervened to aid “liberation” movements against Russian allies in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria — allying with Muslim extremists to do so — but the U.S. condemns Russia for intervening to aid Russian-speaking people along Russia’s own borders, in a conflict against Nazi militias supported by the U.S. and driven by aggressive NATO expansion.

Moreover, the U.S. occupies one third of the sovereign nation of Syria, with help from its proxy army, the Syrian Defense Forces. In fact, the U.S. allied with al Qaeda and other extremist groups in Syria, as reported here, here and here.

Likewise, U.S. troops remain in Iraq, despite the opposition of the Iraqi government. So, it’s quite hypocritical for the U.S. to reject a ceasefire which allows Russia to occupy Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine which voted overwhelmingly for closer ties with Russia.

These facts and opinions do not justify Russia’s brutal invasion, but they certainly give the lie to statements by President Biden and others that the invasion was “unprovoked.” Even the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014 was provoked: it occurred after, and partially in response to, the U.S.-backed overthrow of the pro-Russian government of Ukraine.

And the facts expose amazing hyprocrisy. The U.S. launched numerous unjustified wars and proxy wars; surrounded Russia and China with pro-US allies and military bases (about 800 worldwide); exited multiple arms treaties; and increased military spending to about $1 trillion a year despite $34 trillion in debt and dire domestic needs. Yet we accuse Russia and China of being the aggressors.

Both sides can be at fault in a conflict. The U.S. too has blood on its hands.

Finally, the facts are strong reasons why the U.S. should not be arming Ukraine to the teeth, pushing it to fight to the last Ukrainian and risking a nuclear war. Instead, it should push for a negotiated end to the war.
https://progressivememes.org/senior-US-diplomats-academics-journalists-and-secretaries-of-defense-say-the-US-provoked-Russia-in-Ukraine.html

June 4, 2024 Posted by | politics international, Reference, Russia, Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US doubtful it could help Korea on nuclear-powered subs

Korea Times 3 June 24

The United States is unlikely to help Korea build nuclear-powered submarines at the moment, as it is stretched by AUKUS commitments to Australia, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the Shangri-La security dialogue in Singapore.

In 2021 the United States signed the AUKUS pact with Britain and Australia to share nuclear-powered submarine technology and to sell at least three Virginia-class boats to Australia in the 2030s.

Several other allies, including Korea, have expressed interest in involvement.

Asked on Saturday at the security summit how he would respond to a direct Korean request for help obtaining nuclear submarines, Austin said it would be “very, very difficult” for Washington to accommodate that “on top of what we do right now.”

“(AUKUS) is no small endeavour,” he said. “We just started down this path with Australia. (It’s) highly doubtful that we could take on another initiative of this type anytime in the near future.”……………………..  https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/06/113_375778.html

June 4, 2024 Posted by | politics international, South Korea, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Presidents Who Gamble With Nuclear Armageddon

Each of the last five presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, have brought us closer to the brink. We desperately need leaders with a knack for peace who can steer the nation, and the world, toward a more secure and less dangerous future.

JEFFREY D. SACHS, May 29, 2024,  https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/nuclear-armageddon

The overriding job of any U.S. president is to keep the nation safe. In the nuclear age, that mainly means avoiding nuclear Armageddon. Joe Biden’s reckless and incompetent foreign policy is pushing us closer to annihilation. He joins a long and undistinguished list of presidents who have gambled with Armageddon, including his immediate predecessor and rival, Donald Trump.

Talk of nuclear war is currently everywhere. Leaders of NATO countries call for Russia’s defeat and even dismemberment, while telling us not to worry about Russia’s 6,000 nuclear warheads. Ukraine uses NATO-supplied missiles to knock out parts of Russia’s nuclear-attack early-warning system inside Russia. Russia, in the meantime, engages in nuclear drills near its border with Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg give the green light to Ukraine to use NATO weapons to hit Russian territory as an increasingly desperate and extremist Ukrainian regime sees fit.

These leaders neglect at our greatest peril the most basic lesson of the nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and Soviet Union in the Cuban Missile Crisis, as told by President John F. Kennedy, one of the few American presidents in the nuclear age to take our survival seriously. In the aftermath of the crisis, Kennedy told us, and his successors:

Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy—or of a collective death-wish for the world.

Yet this is exactly what Biden is doing today, carrying out a bankrupt and reckless policy.

Nuclear war can easily arise from an escalation of non-nuclear war, or by a hothead leader with access to nuclear arms deciding on a surprise first strike, or by a gross miscalculation. The last of these nearly occurred even after Kennedy and his Soviet counterpart Nikita Khrushchev had negotiated an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when a disabled Soviet submarine came within a hair’s breadth of launching a nuclear-tipped torpedo.

The Doomsday Clock was at 17 minutes to midnight when Clinton came to office, but just 9 minutes when he left it. Bush pushed the clock to just 5 minutes, Obama to 3 minutes, and Trump to a mere 100 seconds. Now Biden has taken the clock to 90 seconds.

Most presidents, and most Americans, have little idea how close to the abyss we are. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which was founded in 1947 in part to help the world avoid nuclear annihilation, established the Doomsday Clock to help the public understand the gravity of the risks we face. National security experts adjust the clock depending how far or how close we are to “midnight,” meaning extinction. They put the clock today at just 90 seconds to midnight, the closest that it’s ever been in the nuclear age.

The clock is a useful measure of which presidents have “gotten it” and which have not. The sad fact is that most presidents have recklessly gambled with our survival in the name of national honor, or to prove their personal toughness, or to avoid political attacks from the warmongers, or as the result of sheer incompetence. By a simple and straightforward count, five presidents have gotten it right, moving the clock away from midnight, while nine have moved us closer to Armageddon, including the most recent five.

Truman was president when the Doomsday Clock was unveiled in 1947, at 7 minutes to midnight. Truman stoked the nuclear arms race and left office with the clock at just 3 minutes to midnight. Eisenhower continued the nuclear arms race but also entered into the first-ever negotiations with the Soviet Union regarding nuclear disarmament. By the time he left office, the clock was put back to 7 minutes to midnight.

Kennedy saved the world by coolly reasoning his way through the Cuban Missile Crisis, rather than following the advice of hothead advisors who called for war (for a detailed account, see Martin Sherwin’s magisterial Gambling with Armageddon, 2020). He then negotiated the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with Khrushchev in 1963. By the time of his death, which may well have been a government coup resulting from Kennedy’s peace initiative, JFK had pushed the clock back to 12 minutes to midnight, a magnificent and historic achievement.

It was not to last. Lyndon Johnson soon escalated in Vietnam and pushed the clock back again to just 7 minutes to midnight. Richard Nixon eased tensions with both the Soviet Union and China, and concluded the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), pushing the clock again to 12 minutes from midnight. Yet Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter failed to secure SALT II, and Carter fatefully and unwisely gave a green light to the CIA in 1979 to destabilize Afghanistan. By the time Ronald Reagan took office, the clock was at just 4 minutes to midnight.

The next 12 years marked the end of the Cold War. Much of the credit is due to Mikhail Gorbachev, who aimed to reform the Soviet Union politically and economically, and to end the confrontation with the West. Yet credit is also due to Reagan and his successor George Bush, Sr., who successfully worked with Gorbachev to end the Cold War, which in turn was followed by the end of the Soviet Union itself in December 1991. By the time Bush left office, the Doomsday clock was at 17 minutes to midnight, the safest since the start of the nuclear age.

Sadly, the U.S. security establishment could not take “Yes” for an answer when Russia said an emphatic yes to peaceful and cooperative relations. The U.S. needed to “win” the Cold War, not just end it. It needed to declare itself and prove itself to be the sole superpower of the world, the one that would unilaterally write the rules of a new U.S.-led “rules-based order.” The post-1992 U.S. therefore launched wars and expanded its vast network of military bases as it saw fit, steadfastly and ostentatiously ignoring the red lines of other nations, indeed aiming to drive nuclear adversaries into humiliating retreats.

Since 1992, every president has left the U.S. and the world closer to nuclear annihilation than his predecessor. The Doomsday Clock was at 17 minutes to midnight when Clinton came to office, but just 9 minutes when he left it. Bush pushed the clock to just 5 minutes, Obama to 3 minutes, and Trump to a mere 100 seconds. Now Biden has taken the clock to 90 seconds.

Biden has led the U.S. into three fulminant crises, any one of which could end up in Armageddon. By insisting on NATO enlargement to Ukraine, against Russia’s bright red line, Biden has repeatedly pushed for Russia’s humiliating retreat. By siding with a genocidal Israel, he has stoked a new Middle East arms race and a dangerously expanding Middle East conflict. By taunting China over Taiwan, which the U.S. ostensibly recognizes as part of one China, he is inviting a war with China.

Trump similarly stirred the nuclear pot on several fronts, most flagrantly with China and Iran.Washington seems of a single mind these days: more funding for wars in Ukraine and Gaza, more armaments for Taiwan. We slouch ever closer to Armageddon. Polls show the American people overwhelmingly disapprove of U.S. foreign policy, but their opinion counts for very little. We need to shout for peace from every hilltop. The survival of our children and grandchildren depends on it.

June 2, 2024 Posted by | politics international, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

The ghost of Concorde stalks the Franco-British nuclear renaissance

Critics fear history is repeating itself as Flamanville opens late and vastly over budget

AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD, 29 May 2024

Critics fear history is repeating itself as Flamanville opens late and
vastly over budget. France’s first nuclear plant for a quarter century is
finally going ahead at Flamanville on the coast of Normandy, 12 years late
and six times over budget.

EDF has loaded the fuel of the giant European
Pressurised Reactor or EPR1. The first nuclear reaction will take place
within weeks, reaching full power of 1.65 gigawatts (GW) by year’s end.
It will be the most powerful reactor on the planet, to be joined eventually
by two sister reactors at Hinkley Point, and another at Sizewell C if
anybody can find the money.

To fans, Flamanville is an ultra-safe feat of
advanced engineering, with three layers of protective barriers. It can
withstand an earthquake, a tsunami, a head-on crash by an Airbus A380, or
even (arguably) a meltdown of the core. It is built to last 60 years,
perhaps a century.

To critics, it is a ruinous misadventure, the ultimate
over-refinement of obsolete fission technology that can never compete on a
commercial basis.

Delays have left France dependent on old reactors that
are literally falling apart. EDF has racked up debts of €54bn (£46bn)
and had to be renationalised in 2022. To those of us in the middle –
friendly to nuclear, if cheap enough – it is striking that Korea seems
able to roll out workhorse reactors relatively quickly at half the cost.
Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power’s modified APR1000 reactor was certified in
Europe last year. All is forgiven, apparently, even though a parallel EPR1
plant at Olkiluoto in Finland – opened last year – had similar delays
and cost overruns, and even though the Taishan I variant in China had to
shut down for a year due to damaged fuel rods.

Emmanuel Macron began his
presidency by closing a working reactor near the German border in order to
please Angela Merkel. He had a Damascene conversion after Putin’s
invasion of Ukraine. Mr Macron now wants to build 14 modified EPR2 reactors
– supposedly cheaper – in a repeat of France’s “dash for nuclear”
under premier Pierre Messmer in 1974.

It is a heroic undertaking for a
country with a structural budget deficit of 5pc of GDP and a debt ratio
stuck at 112pc, with rating agencies on the prowl. Much the same can be
said about Britain’s nuclear renaissance, targeting 24 GW by mid-century.
The bet is that the average cost per EPR will fall by 30pc as the series
rolls out a scale. That would cut the putative bill for Sizewell C to £85
MWh in today’s money, or lower if you treat it as a 60-year venture in
accounting terms. Reste à voir, as the French say.

 Telegraph 29th May 2024

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/29/ghost-concorde-stalks-franco-british-nuclear-renaissance/

June 1, 2024 Posted by | France, politics international, UK | Leave a comment

China and Russia Issue Nuclear Warnings

CEPA. By Michael Sheridan, May 28, 2024

The leaders of Russia and China have jointly shifted their stance on nuclear weapons, signaling a move away from decades of cautious Chinese thinking.

The Chinese-Russian accord is significant because it was accompanied by a joint challenge to the West’s buildup of its alliances and military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

While the nuclear element of the joint communique following the May 16 summit of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin was not trumpeted and received little media attention, the two countries spelled out points of agreement on issues of significance.

The backdrop is China’s accelerated expansion of its nuclear forces and new fields of missile silos, leading the Pentagon to predict it may more than triple its capability to 1,500 weapons by 2035.

While Beijing is believed to adhere to a historical pledge that it would not be the first to use nuclear weapons, its actual doctrine remains obscure, there is a worrying absence of military dialogue with its rivals and recent purges at the top of its nuclear forces add to the uncertainties.

Nonetheless, it is clear that President Xi sees nuclear weapons as pieces on the global chessboard in a way that no previous leader of the People’s Republic thought necessary or desirable. Mao Zedong himself dismissed the atomic bomb as “a paper tiger.”…………………………………………………………………………….


Xi and Putin expressed “serious concern” that the US “under the pretext of conducting joint exercises with its allies that are clearly aimed at China and Russia” was acting to deploy land-based intermediate-range missile systems in the Asia-Pacific region (possibly a reference to plans to sell 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles to Japan and defend the so-called first island chain that rings China’s coasts.)

They did not specify the systems referred to but warned the US and NATO against providing “extended deterrence” to individual allies. They also singled out the AUKUS pact tightening defense cooperation between the US, Britain, and Australia.

In unusually specific language, the two leaders warned against “building infrastructure in Australia, a signatory to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, that could be used for US and British nuclear forces to conduct operations and to carry out US-UK-Australian nuclear submarine co-operation.”………………………………….. https://cepa.org/article/china-and-russia-issue-nuclear-warnings/

May 31, 2024 Posted by | China, politics international, Russia | 1 Comment

Russian think tank proposes ‘demonstrative’ nuclear blast to deter Western support for Ukraine

Livemint , Written By Shivangini 30 May 2024  https://www.livemint.com/news/world/russian-think-tank-proposes-demonstrative-nuclear-blast-to-deter-western-support-for-ukraine-11717034780694.html

A senior member of a Russian think tank, whose ideas often influence government policy, has proposed a ‘demonstrative’ nuclear explosion to deter the West from allowing Ukraine to use its arms against targets inside Russia, Reuters reported on Thursday, May 30.

Dmitry Suslov, a member of the Moscow-based Council for Foreign and Defence Policy, made the proposal shortly after President Vladimir Putin warned that NATO members in Europe were “playing with fire” by proposing to let Kyiv use Western weapons to strike deep inside Russia. As quoted by Reuters, Putin indicated that such actions could trigger a global conflict.

Ukraine’s leadership argues that it needs the capability to strike Russian forces and military targets inside Russia with long-range Western missiles to defend itself and prevent air, missile, and drone attacks. The report added that this view has garnered some support among Western countries, though not from Washington.

Russia, which has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, has warned that allowing Ukraine to strike inside Russia would be a grave escalation, potentially drawing NATO and involved countries into direct conflict with Moscow and increasing the risk of nuclear war.

Suslov, whose think tank has been praised by Putin and whose ideas sometimes influence government policy, suggested that Russia must act decisively to deter the West from crossing a red line.

“To confirm the seriousness of Russia’s intentions and to convince our opponents of Moscow’s readiness to escalate, it is worth considering a demonstrative (i.e., non-combat) nuclear explosion,” Suslov wrote in the business magazine Profil. “The political and psychological effect of a nuclear mushroom cloud, which will be shown live on all TV channels around the world, will hopefully remind Western politicians of the one thing that has prevented wars between the great powers since 1945 and that they have now largely lost – fear of nuclear war,” Suslov wrote according to Reuters.

Suslov’s proposal is the latest in a series of similar suggestions by Russian security experts and lawmakers. It has raised concerns among Western security experts that Russia might be inching towards such a test, which could usher in a new era of major power nuclear testing.

There was no immediate comment on Suslov’s proposal from the Kremlin, which has stated that Russia’s nuclear policy remains unchanged. However, the Kremlin signalled its displeasure with increasingly aggressive Western rhetoric on arming Kyiv earlier this month by ordering tactical nuclear weapons drills.

Suslov also suggested that Russia initiate strategic nuclear exercises, warn any country whose weapons are used by Kyiv to attack Russia that Moscow reserves the right to strike that country’s targets anywhere in the world, and caution that it could use nuclear weapons if that country retaliates conventionally.

In November, Putin signed a law withdrawing Russia’s ratification of the global treaty banning nuclear weapons tests, a move intended to align Russia with the United States, which signed but never ratified the treaty. Russian diplomats have said that Russia, which has not conducted a nuclear test since the Soviet era, would not resume testing unless Washington does.

The Soviet Union last conducted a nuclear test in 1990, and the United States last did so in 1992. North Korea is the only country to have conducted a nuclear test this century.

Earlier this month, Russia warned Britain that it could strike British military installations and equipment both inside Ukraine and elsewhere if British weapons were used by Ukraine to strike Russian territory. This warning followed British Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s statement that Kyiv had the right to use UK-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia.

May 30, 2024 Posted by | politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

Rare spat shows China and North Korea still at odds on nuclear weapons

Japan Times, BY JOSH SMITH, SEOUL, May 29, 2024

North Korea’s rare swipe at China this week underscored how Beijing and Pyongyang do not entirely see eye-to-eye on the latter’s illicit nuclear weapons arsenal, despite warming ties in other areas, analysts and officials in South Korea said.

The North condemned China, Japan and South Korea on Monday for discussing denuclearization of the peninsula, calling their joint declaration after a summit in Seoul a “grave political provocation” that violates its sovereignty.

Even though Beijing helped tone down the statement by advocating mention of the peninsula rather than the North specifically, that was enough to raise its neighbor’s hackles, one analyst said.

“It is notable that North Korea criticized a joint statement that China had signed onto, even after Beijing helped water down the statement,” added Patricia Kim, of the Brookings Institution in the United States.

In their remarks, the three nations “reiterated positions on regional peace and stability, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” but unlike the last such statements in 2019 and earlier, did not commit to pursue denuclearization.

Since international talks with the United States and other countries stalled in 2019, North Korea has moved to reject the concept of ever giving up its nuclear weapons.

“This is about North Korea emphasizing its stance that any diplomatic rhetoric suggesting Pyongyang should eventually denuclearize is unacceptable,” said Tong Zhao, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“After enshrining its nuclear status in the constitution and reprimanding anyone who questions it, North Korea is raising demands for formal international recognition as a nuclear-armed country.”……………………………………… more https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/05/29/asia-pacific/politics/china-north-korea-nuclear-weapons/—

May 30, 2024 Posted by | China, North Korea, politics international | Leave a comment

Why US Opposes Efforts to Keep Space Weapons-Free

 https://sputnikglobe.com/20240521/why-us-opposes-efforts-to-keep-space-weapons-free-1118569943.html

The United Nations Security Council failed to adopt a resolution drafted by Russia on prevention of weapon deployment in space this week, with seven countries – including the United States and Britain – voting against it.

The United States and Britain’s move to block a Russian draft resolution in the UN Security Council aimed at preventing an arms race in space stem from the US’ unwillingness to let Russian and Chinese initiatives to ban space weapons succeed, Dmitry Stefanovich from the Moscow-based Institute of World Economy and International Relations at the Russian Academy of Sciences says.

While Russia and China, as well as a number of other countries, insist on adopting a legally binding document that would ban the very concept of stationing weapon systems in space, Western powers such as the US want the situation where anyone can deploy anything they want in space as long as their behavior is deemed correct, he explains.

Therefore, the West is promoting the concept of restricting what spacecraft can do in space whereas the Russo-Chinese approach is to prohibit sending weapons into space, Stefanovich surmises.

Regarding speculation about the possible deployment of nuclear weapons in Earth’s orbit, Stefanovich points out that the United States currently enjoys a distinct advantage in the “dual-use space infrastructure,” i.e. spacecraft and satellites that can be used for both commercial/scientific and military purposes.

Since destroying large satellite constellations through conventional means, one by one, would seem a daunting task, it begets concerns that nuclear weapons might be used to accomplish such tasks, he explains.

Stefanovich also lamentas that any progress in resolving concerns about weapon deployment in space that was made in the past few years was essentially undone amid the ongoing conflict between the West and Russia, as well as the confrontation between the United States and China.

“Currently, everyone is looking for a way to weaken their adversary rather than for some kind of mutually acceptable solution,” he says.

May 24, 2024 Posted by | politics international, space travel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

North Korea vows to boost nuclear posture after US subcritical nuke test

DPRK slams US for destabilizing global security through no-expolosion experiment, though expert downplays threat

NK News Jeongmin Kim , May 20, 2024

North Korea has condemned the U.S. for conducting a no-explosion nuclear experiment that it claims destabilizes global security, vowing to recalibrate its own nuclear deterrence measures in response.

The U.S. Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced last week that it conducted a “subcritical experiment at an underground facility in Nevada on May 14 to collect information about the reliability and effectiveness of American nuclear warheads.

“This is a dangerous act that renders the extremely worsening global security environment more unstable, having seriously negative impact on the strategic balance among major nuclear powers,” an unnamed spokesperson of North Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday.

Both the externally facing Korean Central News Agency and the domestic party daily Rodong Sinmun carried the statement.

The spokesperson called the U.S. the “world’s biggest nuclear weapons state” with a “strategic goal to militarily control other countries,” disqualifying it from discussing the threat of nuclear war. 

It is “nothing but rhetoric,” the statement continues before referencing the strategic assets that visited South Korea in the past couple of years, the U.S.-ROK Nuclear Consultative Group on discussing joint nuclear planning and the joint tabletop exercise slated for August on North Korean nuclear use scenarios. 

The latest test in Nevada has “added new tension to the military showdown among nuclear weapons states, fomenting the international nuclear arms race,” the statement reads, vowing to improve its nuclear defense posture against this threat.

However, Shin Seung-ki, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA), told NK News that the U.S. test is not as threatening or new as North Korea described it. ………………………………………….

South Korean and U.S. authorities have said North Korea completed preparations for a seventh nuclear test around two years ago, but Pyongyang has not conducted one so far.   https://www.nknews.org/2024/05/north-korea-vows-to-boost-nuclear-posture-after-us-subcritical-nuke-test/

May 22, 2024 Posted by | North Korea, politics international | Leave a comment

US-Saudi officials meet for security and nuclear deal

the Biden administration is offering a strategic deal on nuclear deal to the Saudis to assist a Saudi civilian nuclear program, as Iran has reached the weapons threshold under President Joe Biden’s watch.

May 20, 2024 , https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240520-us-saudi-officials-meet-for-security-and-nuclear-deal/

US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, and Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, met in Dhahran to discuss a range of issues, including normalisation of ties with Israel, Reuters reports.

According to the report, a Saudi statement on Sunday also said, “the semi-final version of the draft strategic agreements between the two countries, which are almost being finalised”, were discussed.

The report added that the Biden administration is offering a strategic deal on nuclear deal to the Saudis to assist a Saudi civilian nuclear program, as Iran has reached the weapons threshold under President Joe Biden’s watch.

The meeting also covered “what is being worked on between the two sides on the Palestinian issue to find a credible path towards a two-state solution”, as well as attempts to stop the war in Gaza and facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid there.

May 22, 2024 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

Iran’s new leaders stand at a nuclear precipice

The world’s atomic watchdog fears a terrifying regional arms race

The Economist 20 May 24

On may 6th Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (iaea), travelled to Tehran and met Hossein Amirabdollahian, Iran’s foreign minister. Less than two weeks later, on May 19th, Mr Amirabdollahian was dead, killed in a helicopter crash that also took the life of Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president, among others.

Their deaths throw Iran’s sclerotic theocracy into a moment of confusion and uncertainty, one with far-reaching implications for the country’s nuclear programme. Mr Grossi, fresh from his trip to Iran, recently spoke to The Economist about the Iranian nuclear file, as well as the other items on his forbidding to-do list, from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear-power plant in Ukraine to the “growing attraction” of nuclear weapons worldwide……………………(Subscribers only)  https://www.economist.com/international/2024/05/20/irans-new-leaders-stand-at-a-nuclear-precipice
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May 21, 2024 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

Moscow to ‘mirror’ West, NATO approaches, including nuclear weapons: Russia

Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov rejects West claims about Moscow’s next target in NATO state after Ukraine war, calling them ‘completely absurd’

Elena Teslova   17.05.2024, MOSCOW,  https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/moscow-to-mirror-west-nato-approaches-including-nuclear-weapons-russia/3222601

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Friday that Moscow will “mirror” the West and NATO approaches, including on nuclear weapons issues.

In an interview with the Russian state news agency TASS, Ryabkov mocked the Washington administration, saying “punks” have come to power in the US, who are flagrantly violating Russia’s red lines to show off.

The diplomat emphasized that Russia refrains from responding with full force and exercises “exceptional restraint” to avoid further escalation, acting strictly within the framework chalked out by the country’s leadership and defined in terms of the goals and objectives of the “special military operation.”

“There are also these fashionistas in the Western group, alongside punks, who introduce ideas they deem fresh into discussions of what is going on,” he said.

“For example, at the behest of Washington, the fashion of the spring-summer season of 2024 is the claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not stop in Ukraine but would definitely attack other NATO countries,” he said, calling such claims “completely absurd.”

Ryabkov emphasized that such statements are more than just disinformation to distort the essence of Russian foreign policy.

“There is also another trend. This is the claim that strategic uncertainty and ambiguity should be shown concerning Russia so that Moscow does not know how NATO will act in a given situation.

“However, this uncertainty has always been characteristic of the doctrinal approaches of the Western group, including those related to nuclear weapons,” the deputy foreign minister said, vowing, “We will mirror them in this issue.”

When asked about the possibility of lowering the level of diplomatic ties, he said given the current crisis in relations, nothing can be ruled out, though it is not Russia’s choice.

“Those in power in the US and other key Western states have recently gathered quite a lot of figures who are, by and large, provocateurs and have made the meaning of their existence a test of Moscow’s strength,” he said.

Ryabkov also responded to a question about US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Ukraine by saying, “Shortly before the departure of this group to Kyiv, we received the relevant information.”

Regarding the exchange of prisoners, he noted that the frequency of contacts on this issue depends on the American side, which focuses on high-profile cases followed by long pauses.

In response to allegations that Russia intends to interfere in the 2024 US Presidential election, Ryabkov said there has been no Russian interference in past elections and that there will be none, as Moscow fundamentally does not interfere in election campaigns in any country, with the US being no exception.

As for the November election outcome is concerned, he said, Moscow is monitoring the situation but sees no prospects for improving relations between the two countries, regardless of who wins, due to “the fundamentally anti-Russian consensus among American elites.”

May 21, 2024 Posted by | politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

Xi outlines solution to Ukraine conflict

 https://www.sott.net/article/491542-Xi-outlines-solution-to-Ukraine-conflict 19 May 24

Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed that peace negotiations recognized by both Russia and Ukraine are the best way to end the ongoing conflict between the two nations.

Speaking during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday at the Chinese leader’s residential compound at Zhongnanhai, Xi argued that the entire global security architecture must be amended in order to end the fighting and avoid similar hostilities in the future, according to the Xinhua news outlet.

Putin is on his first state visit to China since he took office for the fifth time earlier this month.

Xi was cited as saying:

“China supports the timely convening of an international peace conference recognized by both Russia and Ukraine, with equal participation by all parties, and fair discussion of all options. Beijing is willing to aid in brokering the peace talks.”

“Global powers must address both the symptoms and the root cause [of the conflict], and we must consider both the present and the long term.

“The fundamental solution to the Ukraine crisis is to promote the construction of a balanced, effective, and sustainable new security architecture.”

Beijing has repeatedly rejected Western pressure to join in the condemnation of Russia over the Ukraine conflict. Since last year, China has been promoting a peace formula consisting of 12 points, including the cessation of hostilities and unilateral sanctions, mutual respect for national security concerns and the sovereignty of nations, and the rejection of a ‘Cold War’ mentality.

Kiev has rejected the formula as unrealizable because it does not demand a retreat of Russian forces from territories Kiev claims as its own. Ukraine has long insisted that a peace settlement can only be achieved on its terms, which include a return of all former Ukrainian territories, the withdrawal of Russian troops, and an international tribunal for Russian leaders.

Kiev’s Western backers plan to hold a summit on the Ukraine conflict in Switzerland next month, to which Russia has not been invited. Beijing has yet to officially confirm whether it will send a delegation.

Russia has welcomed China’s proposed peace formula from the start, having repeatedly stressed that it remains open to a political solution to the conflict. In an interview with Xinhua ahead of his visit to China, Putin said Beijing’s initiative showed “the genuine desire… to help stabilize the situation” in the region. He added that he would endorse the formula as it calls for a dialogue based on mutual consideration of the interests of all sides involved in the conflict, including Russia.

May 20, 2024 Posted by | China, politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

China and Russia Disagree on North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons

Beijing and Moscow have different perspectives on – and different appetites for – Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

The Diplomat, By Wooyeal Paik, May 15, 2024

China has been ambivalent about North Korea and its strategic behaviors for the last few decades, leading scholars in China to describe North Korea as both “strategic asset” and “strategic liability.” North Korea, China’s sole military ally with an official treaty, the Sino-North Korean Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, signed in 1961, has proved tough to handle, if not outright volatile, for its security and economic patron.

Nonetheless, North Korea’s geopolitical importance to China as a buffer state against the United States and its East Asian allies (South Korea and Japan) has not lessened. Even in the era of high-tech weapons such as missiles, military satellites, nuclear submarines, and fifth-generation fighter jets, all of which serve to reduce the strategic value of physical buffer zones, it is still effective and valuable for China not to confront the mighty hostile power, the United States, on its immediate land border. Ground forces are still the ultimate military presence, and sharing a border with a U.S. allied, unified Korea would also come at a psychological cost for China.

Beyond its role as a buffer state, North Korea’s value as leverage or a bargaining chip for China in Beijing’s relations with South Korea and the United States has been well recognized. In 2024, however, China may consider adding another layer to this leverage by supporting North Korea’s nuclear program, as Russia has done. 

North Korea is a de facto nuclear state with a set of viable delivery mechanisms including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).

This nuclear element of the Kim regime has been regarded as the quintessential reason for an ever-growing regional security instability in Northeast Asia and beyond. 

For China, North Korea – and particularly its nuclear program – is a strategic liability. China prioritizes stability in its neighborhood, but North Korea purposefully pursues instability right next to China. This conflict of interests between the treaty allies exacerbates Chinese national security concerns, particularly regarding the United States and its hub-and-spoke system in the Indo-Pacific area. 

In response to North Korea’s rapid nuclear and missile developments, the United States has significantly ramped up its military presence on and around the Korean Peninsula, in consultation with its ally, South Korea. That includes the regular deployment of strategic (i.e., nuclear-capable) U.S. assets to the region, something China is not comfortable with.

Russia, however, takes a different view. Over the past year, Moscow has shifted its strategic approach to the North Korea’s nuclear capability and provocations, from viewing them as a nuisance that disrupts the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime to a tactical countermeasure against the United States. From Russia’s perspective, distracting the U.S. – the primary military and economic presence as the NATO leader – is a goal unto itself, as Washington is a major obstacle to Russia’s desire to conquer Ukraine and influence the post-Soviet Central and Eastern Europe. 

Russia has been importing North Korean weapons – 152 mm artillery ammunition,122 mm multiple rocket launcher ammunition, and other conventional weapons – for use against Ukraine. In return, it’s widely believed that North Korea receives Russia’s technical assistance for the research and development of advanced space and weapons technologies: nuclear-powered submarines, cruise and ballistic missiles, military reconnaissance satellites. North Korea also receives food and energy in addition to rare international support for its pariah regime. 

Russia actively endorses North Korea as a nuclear state and supports its “legitimate” use of nuclear weapons for its self-defense and beyond. As Kim Jong Un embraces a lower nuclear threshold, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ruling elites have also expressed their willingness to employ low-yield tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine and European NATO countries. 

Thus, North Korea has evolved into a double-layered tool for Russia, acting as both a buffer state and a nuclear threat against the United States in Northeast Asia and Europe. This accelerates the convergence of security between Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic regions.

Despite Russia’s high-profile advances with North Korea, China is still thought to be the only nation with significant influence over Pyongyang. ……………………………………………………….. more https://thediplomat.com/2024/05/china-and-russia-disagree-on-north-koreas-nuclear-weapons/

May 17, 2024 Posted by | China, North Korea, politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

Iran open to ‘serious dialogue’, says UN nuclear chief

Fraught relations with Tehran, which faces sanctions over its atomic programme, appear to be easing

Andrew England in London, Ft.com 15 May 24

Iran has shown a willingness to engage in “serious dialogue” with the UN’s nuclear watchdog for the first time in more than a year, according to the agency’s head, in a sign Tehran is seeking to ease tensions with the US. Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Financial Times that Tehran and the watchdog, which have endured fraught relations for months, could be entering a “different phase” after he held talks in Iran. Tehran appears willing to discuss “concrete” issues, he said. The apparent shift in tone was prompted by an invitation from Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami for Grossi to attend talks in the Islamic republic. The call came in mid-April at a time of heightened tensions between Iran, Israel and the US.

Around that time, Iranian officials issued veiled threats that Tehran could change policy and seek to weaponise its expansive nuclear programme. But after meeting Eslami and other senior officials last week on his first trip to Iran since March 2023, Grossi said he sensed an opportunity to resolve some points of contention, including improving the IAEA’s ability to monitor the republic’s nuclear activities. “I see in them a recognition that it is better to have some engagement than to continue on a completely divergent course, leading to more escalation and perhaps even more danger, including war,” Grossi said. “It’s very important because we reconnected after many months of talking past each other.

He added that Washington and Tehran also continued to keep open a “bilateral channel”. The FT revealed that senior US and Iranian officials held secret indirect talks in Oman in January as both sides sought to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from exploding into a full-blown regional conflict………………………

Grossi said Iran had not altered the scale or pace of its nuclear activity since Hamas’s October 7 attack and Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza sparked hostilities across the Middle East. He added that there was “no evidence to suggest that Iran has moved, or is moving, or is planning to move, to a weapons programme”. Iran has been enriching uranium up to 60 per cent purity, close to weapons grade, for more than two years. It is part of Tehran’s response to former US President Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally abandon the 2015 nuclear accord Tehran signed with world powers………………………………………………. more https://www.ft.com/content/d5e07404-2fed-4f60-ba11-59e6734665c2

May 16, 2024 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

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