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Israel Starts Bombing Iran, IRGC Chief Reported Killed

The Israeli military is preparing for a very heavy missile attack from Iran in response

by Dave DeCamp | Jun 13, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/06/12/israel-starts-bombing-iran/

The Israeli military has begun bombing Iran, an attack that could provoke a major, catastrophic war in the region involving the US.

Heavy airstrikes have hit the Iranian capital of Tehran, and videos show plumes of smoke rising from the city. Photos also show damaged residential buildings, and deaths of women and children have been reported. Strikes have also hit several provinces across Iran.

The IDF said that it has launched “dozens” of airstrikes on Iran in an attack it said is targeting the country’s civilian nuclear program. Iran’s PressTV has reported that strikes hit the Natanz nuclear facility.

Israel has also targeted senior Iranian military officials, and Iranian reports say Hossein Salami, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has been killed. The bombing has also killed several other senior IRGC officials and nuclear scientists.

The Mossad reportedly launched sabotage attacks against Iranian air defense systems and missile facilities that coincided with the Israeli airstrikes.

Israel has dubbed the operation the “Nation of Lions.” The Israeli military is also warning that Iran could launch a major counterattack against Israeli territory and said that its operation against Iran could last several days.

“Following the State of Israel’s preemptive strike against Iran, a missile and drone attack against the State of Israel and its civilian population is expected in the immediate future,” said Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that Israel has taken “unliateral action” against Iran and claimed the US wasn’t involved. “Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense. President Trump and the Administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces and remain in close contact with our regional partners. Let me be clear: Iran should not target US interests or personnel,” Rubio said.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it holds the US responsible for the attack. “The Zionist regime’s aggressive actions against Iran cannot have been carried out without the coordination and authorization of the United States. Accordingly, the United States government, as the main supporter of this regime, will also be responsible for the dangerous effects and consequences of the Zionist regime’s adventure,” the ministry said.

Media reports have said that Iran planned to attack without US backing, but CBS News reported that the Trump administration was weighing options regarding how to support Israeli military action. According to Israel’s Channel 12, the US participated in a campaign to lull Iran into thinking an attack was not going to happen immediately.

In a video statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President Trump for his “steadfast stance” on Iran.

The bombing began hours after President Trump said that an Israeli attack on Iran could happen soon, although he claimed that he still wanted to pursue a nuclear deal with Tehran despite his repeated demand that Iran must eliminate its nuclear enrichment program, which is a non-starter for Tehran.

Previous reports said that Israel was considering bombing Iran to sabotage the diplomacy between the US and Iran. The attacks come as there is no evidence that Tehran is working toward a nuclear weapon, which is the consensus of the US intelligence community.

June 14, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Russia said on Wednesday it stood ready to remove highly enriched uranium from Iran.

 Russia said on Wednesday it stood ready to remove highly enriched uranium
from Iran and convert it into civilian reactor fuel as a potential way to
help narrow U.S.-Iranian differences over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear
programme. Tehran says it has the right to peaceful nuclear power, but its
swiftly-advancing uranium enrichment programme has raised fears in the
wider West and across the Gulf that it wants to develop a nuclear weapon.

 Reuters 11th June 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-is-ready-remove-excess-nuclear-materials-iran-2025-06-11/

June 14, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Russia, Uranium | Leave a comment

Iran says it will release Israeli nuclear secrets as pressure grows to reimpose sanctions

Tehran threat comes as European powers press for vote that could lead to reimposition of UN sanctions

Guardian Patrick Wintour, 9 June 25

Iran has said it will soon start releasing information from a hoard of Israeli nuclear secrets it claims to have obtained, as European countries push for a vote this week on reimposing UN sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear programme.

The unverified claims by Iranian intelligence of a massive leak of Israeli secrets may be designed to turn the focus away from what Iran argues is its own excessively monitored civil nuclear programme.

On Sunday, Iran’s intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, claimed Tehran had obtained “a vast collection of strategic and sensitive [Israeli] documents, including plans and data on the nuclear facilities”. He added evidence would be released shortly, and implied some of the documentation was linked to Israel’s arrest of two Israeli nationals, Roi Mizrahi and Almog Attias, over alleged spying for Iran………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/09/iran-says-it-will-release-israeli-nuclear-secrets-as-pressure-grows-to-reimpose-sanctions

June 11, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Nuclear Watchdog Meeting Sparks Tensions With Iran

By RFE/RL staff – Jun 07, 2025,
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Nuclear-Watchdog-Meeting-Sparks-Tensions-With-Iran.html

  • Iran has vowed to react strongly to potential IAEA findings of noncompliance pushed by Western nations, citing past actions as precedent.
  • The IAEA’s latest report indicates a sharp increase in Iran’s production of highly enriched uranium, exceeding limits set by the 2015 nuclear deal.
  • US-Iran nuclear talks have stalled, leading to heightened risk of escalation, and Israel has reportedly assured the US it will not strike Iran’s nuclear sites without explicit authorization.

Iran has vowed to take strong action against Western nations pushing a resolution at a quarterly meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog that would find the Islamic republic in noncompliance with its safeguards obligations for the first time in 20 years.

In a June 6 post on X, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi slammed Britain, France, and Germany — collectively known as the E3 — for “falsely accusing Iran” of violating its obligations and claimed the move was “designed to produce a crisis.”

“Mark my words as Europe ponders another major strategic mistake: Iran will react strongly against any violation of its rights. Blame lies solely and fully with irresponsible actors who stop at nothing to gain relevance,” Araqchi warned.

A draft resolution prepared by the E3 and backed by the United States was shared on June 5 with the 35 members of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Board of Governors, which will hold its quarterly meeting on June 9-13.

Araqchi pointed to a similar episode in 2005 when Iran resumed uranium conversion activities after suspending them during earlier negotiations with the E3.

In response, the European trio pushed for Iran to be declared in noncompliance and referred to the UN Security Council. Iran retaliated by ending voluntary transparency measures and significantly expanding its uranium enrichment program — a turning point Araqchi described as “in many ways the true birth of uranium enrichment in Iran.”

In its latest quarterly report, the IAEA said Iran has sharply increased its production of highly enriched uranium, stockpiling 408.6 kilograms enriched to 60 percent — up from just under 275 kilograms in February.

The agency also criticized Iran for poor cooperation, particularly its failure to explain nuclear traces detected at undeclared sites.

While 60 percent enrichment is below the 90 percent threshold required for weapons-grade material, it far exceeds the 3.67 percent limit set by the 2015 nuclear deal, which US President Donald Trump exited in 2018 during his first term in office. Trump returned to the presidency in January.

The Trump administration has held five rounds of talks with Iran since April to reach a new agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program. But this week, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected a US proposal after Trump stated that Iran would not be allowed to continue enriching uranium under any future deal.

Axios says the White House’s “interpretation” of Trump’s two-month deadline for a deal is that it expires next week. Israel, which has long been planning to strike Iranian nuclear sites, is said to have assured Washington it will not launch a military strike on Iran unless diplomatic negotiations fail and it receives explicit clearance from Trump.

June 10, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Iran says IAEA new report on nuclear activities politically motivated, based on Israel’s fake documents

By IFP Editorial Staff, June 1, 2025, https://ifpnews.com/iran-iaea-new-report-nuclear-activities-politically-motivated-israels-fake-documents/

The Foreign Ministry and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) have issued a joint statement in response to the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), regarding Iran’s nuclear program, denouncing it as “political” and based on forged documents provided by the Israeli regime.

Iran stressed on Saturday that the accusation from the IAEA was “politically motivated and repeats baseless allegation”.

“The repetition of baseless allegations that cannot lend credibility to these claims, coupled with voicing too much concern in this regard, serves merely as a pretext for political propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the statement said.

“This is while the fake Israeli regime, without being a signatory to the NPT, possesses a nuclear arsenal and simultaneously threatens the peaceful nuclear facilities of an NPT member nation. Unfortunately, despite his legal duties and repeated requests from the Islamic Republic of Iran to condemn these threats, the IAEA director general has taken no action,” it added.

Iran expressed “deep regret about the director general’s lack of impartiality and his disregard for professional conduct under political pressures in the preparation and publication of the report”.

“Unfortunately, despite such broad cooperation on part of Iran, the comprehensive report prepared, although acknowledging Iran’s cooperation, does not reflect the actual level of such cooperation,” the statement read.

“In the report, the director general, by relying extensively on forged documents provided by the Zionist regime, has reiterated previous biased and unfounded accusations. The allegations leveled in the current report are based on a few claims about undeclared activities and locations from past decades. This is while Iran has repeatedly declared that it has had no undeclared nuclear sites or activities.”

In its latest report, the IAEA claimed that Iran has sharply increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent, close to the roughly 90 percent level needed for atomic weapons.

In its quarterly report, the agency said that as of May 17, Iran possesses an estimated 408.6 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60 percent, marking an increase of 133.8 kilograms since the previous report in February.

According to the report, Iran’s total amount of enriched uranium now exceeds 45 times the limit authorized by the 2015 agreement – formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — and is estimated at 9,247.6 kilograms.

June 4, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Trump Says New Iran Deal Must Allow US To ‘Blow Up Whatever We Want’

A senior Iranian adviser said the proposal would amount to “submission and surrender”

by Will Porter May 30, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/05/30/trump-says-new-iran-deal-must-allow-us-to-blow-up-whatever-we-want/

President Donald Trump argued that any revived nuclear accord with Iran should permit the United States to destroy the country’s nuclear infrastructure and send inspectors to Iranian facilities at any time.

The president outlined his vision for a new agreement during a White House presser on Wednesday, calling for a “very strong document” that would effectively give Washington carte blanche over Tehran’s nuclear energy program.

“I want it very strong – where we can go in with inspectors, we can take whatever we want, we can blow up whatever we want, but [with] nobody getting killed,” he told reporters. “We can blow up a lab, but nobody is gonna be in the lab, as opposed to everybody being in the lab and blowing it up.”

He did not elaborate on those remarks, however, leaving it unclear whether Washington had actually pushed for such major concessions at the negotiating table. The Islamic Republic would be unlikely to accept a deal under those terms.

Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, later denounced Trump’s comments in a social media post, suggesting his proposal would cross Tehran’s “red lines.”

“Efforts to reach Iran’s nuclear plants and ‘blow up their facilities’ have been a dream of previous US presidents,” he wrote. “Iran is an independent state with a strong defense structure, a resilient people, and clear red lines. Negotiations are a means to progress and preserve national interests and honor, not submission and surrender.”

During the same news conference on Wednesday, Trump said he had urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from military action against Iran amid the ongoing nuclear talks, arguing the move would be “inappropriate” as the two sides were “very close to a solution.” He went on to claim that a new agreement could be reached with Tehran in “a couple weeks,” though his previous assessments have proven overly optimistic.

The threat of an Israeli attack has loomed large over the US-Iran negotiations, as Tel Aviv continues to accuse Tehran of pursuing nuclear weapons despite repeated American intelligence assessments to the contrary.

During a visit to Iran last month, Saudi Arabia’s defense chief reportedly warned top Iranian officials that failure to “quickly” reach a deal with the US could prompt airstrikes by Israel. The Saudi minister added that Trump had “little patience for drawn-out negotiations,” and suggested that a new conflict with Tel Aviv would destabilize the region, according to sources cited by Reuters.

Will Porter is assistant news editor and book editor at the Libertarian Institute, and a regular contributor at Antiwar.com. Find more of his work at Consortium News and ZeroHedge.

June 3, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Iran rejects IAEA report alleging increased enriched uranium stockpile

Aljazeera, 31 May 2025

The UN nuclear watchdog warns Tehran could be close to weapons-grade enriched uranium, as negotiations with the US continue.

Iran has rejected a report from the United Nations nuclear watchdog that alleges Tehran has increased its stockpile of highly enriched, near weapons-grade uranium by 50 percent in the last three months.

Iran said on Saturday that the accusation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was “politically motivated and repeates baseless accusations”.

It all comes as nuclear deal negotiations are under way between the United States and Iran, with the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi saying that his country would respond to “elements of a US proposal” his Omani counterpart, Badr Al-Busaidi, had presented during a short visit to Tehran on Saturday.

Araghchi said that the proposal would be “responded to in line with the principles, national interests and rights of the people of Iran”.

Tehran insists that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.

The IAEA said that as of May 17, Iran had amassed 408.6kg (900.8 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60 percent – the only non-nuclear weapon state to do so, according to the UN agency – and had increased its stockpile by almost 50 percent to 133.8kg since its last report in February.

The wide-ranging, confidential report seen by several news agencies said Iran carried out secret nuclear activities with material not declared to the IAEA at three locations that have long been under investigation, calling it a “serious concern” and warning Tehran to change its course.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry slammed the report, saying the agency had used “forged documents provided by the Zionist regime [Israel]” and reiterated “previous biased and baseless accusations”.

Iran refutes allegations of undeclared nuclear sites or activities, stressing that it has instead cooperated with the agency in providing all necessary access to the alleged sites, it said.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran, while expressing regret over the publication of this report, which was prepared for political purposes through pressure on the agency, expresses its clear objection to its content,” the statement added.

Araghchi reaffirmed the country’s longstanding position, saying Tehran deems nuclear weapons “unacceptable”.

“If the issue is nuclear weapons, yes, we too consider this type of weapon unacceptable,” Araghchi, Iran’s lead negotiator in the nuclear talks with the US, said in a televised speech. “We agree with them on this issue.”

‘Both sides building leverage’

But the report, which was requested by the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors in November, will allow for a push by the US, Britain, France and Germany to declare Iran in violation of its non-proliferation obligations.

On Friday, US President Donald Trump said Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon”………………………………………………………… https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/31/iran-increases-stockpile-of-enriched-uranium-by-50-percent-iaea-says

June 3, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Does Tehran want the bomb?

  by beyondnuclearinternational, Linda Pentz Gunter 
https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/05/25/does-tehran-want-the-bomb/

Is Iran’s nuclear power program a tactical threat or purely commercial, asks Linda Pentz Gunter

“As a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Islamic Republic of Iran, based on its religious and ethical principles, has never sought nuclear weapons and remains committed to the principle of non-production and non-use of weapons of mass destruction.”

That was the reassurance given by Iran’s foreign minister, Seyyed Abbas Araghchi, during the Tehran Dialogue Forum hosted earlier this month by the Center for Political and International Studies of Iran’s Foreign Ministry.

It’s a familiar refrain. Iran has consistently argued that it is exercising its “inalienable right” as a signatory to the NPT “to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” as allowed under Article IV of the treaty.

But is it?

Iran has freely admitted that it has enriched uranium-235 up to 60% — considered at least “weapons usable” (higher than 90% is considered weapons-grade.) Why would it choose to — or need to — do this if it has no intention of seeking nuclear weapons production, as Araghchi and others before him have claimed?

The answer to that question seems obvious and one we have repeated ad infinitum when exposing the flaw in the NPT which, in granting the development of civilian nuclear programs to signatories, ensures the pathway to the bomb is left permanently clear.

Even should Iran never actually develop nuclear weapons, it can use its civil program as a threat to do so. It is no idle threat. The possession of a civilian nuclear program affords Iran the materials, equipment, personnel and know-how to transition to nuclear weapons should it so choose.

What might push Iran to make that choice depends a lot on how the current talks go. Keeping Israel at bay — which wanted to start bombing Iran’s nuclear installations immediately — was one of the few sensible decisions the Trump administration has made. 

However, in the view of Mohsen Milani, Executive Director of the Center for Strategic & Diplomatic Studies and Professor of Politics at the University of South Florida, developing nuclear weapons has always been on Iran’s agenda. Milani was speaking during a May 20 webinar on the Iran nuclear talks hosted by the Quincy Institute. You can watch the full webinar below.

“I have always believed and I continue to believe that Iran’s nuclear program was based on turning Iran into a potential nuclear power,” Milani said. “That is a power that has the infrastructure, the expertise, to develop a bomb should they decide to develop a bomb.”

How close Iran might be to that achievement is also much debated. In July 2024, then Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, suggested Iran “is now probably one or two weeks” away from producing enough weapons grade material to make a nuclear weapon. Milani thinks Iran “is much closer than it has ever been,” but doubts the timeline is one or two weeks.

But the key is that “Iran’s nuclear program has never been the central part of Iran’s defense posture, nor has the axis of resistance,” Milani said, referring to the informal coalition of Iranian-supported organizations across the region united to counter the influence of Israel and the US. What Iran is doing is ensuring it can keep the nuclear option, “should there be a need for it,” Milani said. The Trump administration’s approach in these negotiations, in Milani’s view, “is they want to make sure that Iran is incapable of doing what it has tried to do for the past twenty years.”

The whole issue of Iran’s nuclear aspirations is squarely in the news again as the Trump administration continues talks with Tehran about its nuclear program. Confusion and uncertainty has been created by the US side, principally Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, real estate developer Steve Witkoff, who has told Iran it can enrich uranium to commercial grade (below 5%), then changed his tune and insisted Iran can have no nuclear program at all.

After four rounds of largely fruitless talks, the Iranians began to lose patience, laying down their red line. “To say that ‘we will not allow Iran to enrich uranium’ is a huge mistake,” warned Ayatollah Khamenei of the American threat. “No one is waiting for permission from anyone. The Islamic Republic has its own policies, its own methods, and it pursues its own agenda,” he added. 

Pushing Iran around on this might lead to another negative outcome. Iran could leave the NPT. “As a founding advocate for a nuclear-weapons-free zone in West Asia and a long-time NPT member, Iran has shown good faith by engaging in indirect talks with the United States,” Araghchi said at the conference. “But the Iranian nation cannot forfeit its legitimate right to peaceful nuclear technology, including enrichment, which is enshrined in the NPT.”

The speakers on the Quincy webinar agreed that this public back-and-forth by both sides was a mistake and that Iran should deal directly with the United States instead of through an intermediary, and behind closed doors.

By last Wednesday, the Iranian parliament had also made its views known, declaring it would not be held to any uranium enrichments level caps.


By Friday, a fifth round of talks had taken place, again with the Omanis as intermediaries at least some of the time. It was unclear what, if any, progress had been made, with both sides sounding cautiously optimistic. However, a red line for Iran remains the prospect of shipping its entire stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia, as the Americans have suggested. Iran still insists it is happy to renounce any future nuclear weapons production, but not uranium enrichment. Further talks are planned.

But at the end of the day a larger question looms, which is whether nuclear nations like the US, which claims might and influence due to the possession of its nuclear weapons, has a right to tell another country it cannot have them?

Rather than perpetually wrestling with the nuclear hydra, the US could lead by a very different example and show the world that all of these extreme threats would be eliminated by disarming from nuclear weapons altogether. And given the template of flaws that Iran has laid out for us regarding our current disarmament treaties, that means abolishing nuclear power as well.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International. Opinions are her own.

May 30, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Trump warns Netanyahu off Iran strike as nuclear talks continue

28 May,2025 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/28/trump-warns-netanyahu-off-iran-strike-as-nuclear-talks-continue

US president says an Israeli strike ‘would be inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution.’

United States President Donald Trump has said that he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on any strike against Iran to give his administration more time to push for a new nuclear deal with Tehran, as several rounds of talks have been held in Oman and Italy.

Trump told reporters on Wednesday at the White House that he relayed to Netanyahu a strike “would be inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution”

The Israeli leader has been threatening a bombardment of Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran has said it would respond with severity if any such attack were launched.

In the meantime, Iran may pause uranium enrichment if the US releases frozen Iranian funds and recognises its right to refine uranium for civilian use under a “political deal” that could lead to a broader nuclear accord, two Iranian official sources told the Reuters news agency.

The sources, close to the negotiating team, said on Wednesday that a “political understanding with the United States could be reached soon” if Washington accepted Tehran’s conditions. The sources told Reuters that under this arrangement, Tehran would halt uranium enrichment for a year.

The latest developments came as the head of the UN’s atomic watchdog group said that “the jury is still out” on negotiations between Iran and the US over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme. But Rafael Mariano Grossi described the ongoing negotiations as a good sign.

“I think that is an indication of a willingness to come to an agreement. And I think that… is something possible.”

The 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), placed limits on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

It collapsed after Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the agreement in 2018, leading to a sharp escalation in tensions and a breakdown in diplomatic relations.

The key sticking point

US officials have repeatedly said that any new deal must include a firm commitment from Iran to halt uranium enrichment, which they view as a potential pathway to building nuclear weapons.

However, Iran has consistently denied seeking nuclear arms, insisting its programme is solely for civilian purposes. It has rejected Washington’s demand to eliminate enrichment capabilities, calling it an infringement on national sovereignty.

It remains the critical sticking point after negotiators for Tehran and Washington met for a fifth round of Oman-mediated talks in Rome.

Instead, Iran has reportedly proposed that the US publicly recognise Tehran’s right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and approve the release of Iranian oil revenues frozen under US sanctions.

May 29, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Uranium enrichment to 93% is Iran’s right under Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, lawmakers tell UN watchdog

 Iran International, May 14, 2025, 

Iran’s parliament warned on Wednesday that any perceived infringement by the UN’s nuclear watchdog on its nuclear rights, including the right to enrich uranium up to 93%, would be met with backlash.

n a statement by lawmakers addressed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the group said that Iran’s rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — including nuclear research, development, and peaceful use — are non-negotiable and fully verifiable under the IAEA safeguards.

Read by presidium member Ahmad Naderi during a public session, the statement said, “According to Article 4 of the Treaty on the NPT, the great nation of Iran is entitled to three inalienable rights: first, the right to research and development; second, the right to produce; and third, the right to utilize nuclear energy.”

The lawmakers argued that in accordance with this article of the NPT, “the Islamic Republic faces no limitations in nuclear research and development and can proceed with enrichment up to 93% based on its scientific, medical, and industrial needs.”

The lawmakers also criticized the IAEA for what they called four decades of obstructing Iran’s peaceful nuclear development, and for relying on what they called politically motivated intelligence, particularly from Iran’s archenemy, Israel.

Last month, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said in an interview with Le Monde that Iran was “not far” from being able to produce an atomic bomb, describing the country’s progress as “pieces of a puzzle” that could potentially come together.

Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and remains under IAEA monitoring.

Also on Wednesday, Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf condemned US President Donald Trump’s recent remarks in Riyadh in which he referenced Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program and Tehran’s support for military proxies, calling them “delusional” and blaming US policies for instability in West Asia…………………………………………………………………………………..

“Iran is not a warmonger, but we will never surrender. We are brothers with our neighbors and reject US efforts to stir division to boost its arms sales,” he said. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202505143023

May 18, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Uranium | Leave a comment

Iran proposes partnership with UAE and Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium

A consortium would help Tehran deal with US objections and tie in Gulf states to its enrichment programme

Patrick Wintour, 14 Apr 25, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/13/iran-proposes-partnership-with-uae-and-saudi-arabia-to-enrich-uranium

Iran has floated the idea of a consortium of Middle Eastern countries – including Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – to enrich uranium, in a effort to overcome US objections to its continued enrichment programme.

The proposal is seen as a way of locking Gulf states into supporting Iran’s position that it should be allowed to retain enrichment capabilities.

Tehran views the proposal as a concession, since it would be giving neighbouring states access to its technological knowledge and making them stakeholders in the process.

It is not clear if Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, made the proposal in relatively brief three-hour talks with the US in Oman on Sunday, the fourth set of such talks, but the proposal is reportedly circulating in Tehran.

The US has demanded that Iran ends enrichment and dismantles all its nuclear facilities. But amid divisions in Washington, Trump has not made a final decision on the issue and praised Iran’s seriousness in the talks.

The consortium idea was first proposed by former Iranian nuclear negotiator Seyed Hossein Mousavian and Princeton physicist Frank von Hippel long before the current Tehran-Washington talks, in a widely read October 2023 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Under the consortium, the Saudis and UAE would be shareholders and funders, and would gain access to Iranian technology. The involvement of the Gulf states could be seen as an extra insurance that Iran’s nuclear programme was for entirely civil purposes and not the pathway to building a bomb, as Israel alleges.

If the Saudis and UAE were permitted to send engineers to Iran, an extra form of visibility about the programme would become possible, leaving the international community less reliant solely on the work of the UN nuclear inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran gradually moved away from the levels of enrichment and stockpile limits set out in the original 2015 deal, blaming Trump for leaving the nuclear deal. Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, said: “For a limited period of time, we can accept a series of restrictions on the level and volume of enrichment.”

The US originally gave the impression that it needs an agreement with Iran within two months of the talks starting but, as the technicalities of any agreement become more complex, it is possible the talks will be allowed to drag on through the summer.

Iran currently enriches uranium to 60% purity – far above the 3.67% limit set in the 2015 deal, and a short technical step from 90% needed for weapons-grade material. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said these uranium enrichment level are far higher than necessary for civilian uses.

In what may have been a reference to the Iranian proposal Omani foreign minister, Badr Al Busaidi, referred to “useful and original ideas reflecting a shared wish to reach an honourable agreement”.

The UAE operates a civil nuclear power plant named Barakah, located west of Abu Dhabi. It is the first nuclear power plant in the Arab world to be fully operational, with all four reactors now online, and should be capable of producing a quarter of the UAE’s electricity needs.

May 15, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international, Uranium | Leave a comment

Iran calls latest nuclear talks with US ‘difficult’ but both sides agree negotiations will continue

By CNN, May 12, https://www.9news.com.au/world/us-iran-nuclear-talks-iran-calls-latest-nuclear-talks-difficult-but-both-sides-agree-negotiations-will-continue/0d7dc1d5-72da-4a91-a356-4676ac116ea8

The latest round of high-stakes nuclear talks between Iran and the US have ended, with Tehran calling them difficult but with both sides agreeing to further negotiations.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei confirmed on X on Sunday that the talks had concluded, saying they were “difficult but useful to better understand each other’s positions and to find reasonable & realistic ways to address the differences”.

A senior Trump administration official gave a more positive assessment, telling CNN the discussions “were again both direct and indirect” and lasted over three hours, calling them encouraging.

“Agreement was reached to move forward with the talks to continue working through technical elements,” the official said, adding that the US side was “encouraged by today’s outcome” and looked forward to their next meeting, “which will happen in the near future”.

No date has been agreed for the next round although Baqaei said it would be announced by mediator Oman.

The talks on Sunday were aimed at addressing Tehran’s nuclear program and lifting sanctions

That they are happening at all is something of a breakthrough – the talks are the highest-level in years – but signs of firm progress are slim.

Both countries have expressed a willingness to resolve their disputes through diplomacy. A central issue remains Iran’s demand to continue enriching uranium for its nuclear program, which is insists is peaceful, something the US calls a “red line.”

US President Donald Trump, who is headed to the Middle East next week, has threatened that the US would resort to military strikes against Iranian nuclear sites, with Israel’s help, should Tehran fail to reach a deal with its interlocutors.

The Iranian delegation was led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who said before the talks got underway that the US side “holds contradictory positions which is one of the issues in our negotiations”.

“We have been clear about our boundaries,” Araghchi added, according to the Fars news agency.

Iranian officials told CNN on Saturday that recent talks with the US were “not genuine” from the American side. The Iranian source also reiterated that allowing uranium enrichment on Iranian soil is Iran’s “definite red line” in the negotiations.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has been heading the American side, warned that if this session of talks were not productive, “then they won’t continue and we’ll have to take a different route”.

Speaking to Breitbart, Witkoff outlined the US’ expectations for the talks, including on the country’s uranium enrichment program.

“An enrichment program can never exist in the state of Iran ever again. That’s our red line. No enrichment,” he said.

Iran has said it will not surrender its capability to enrich uranium. The country has long insisted it does not want a nuclear weapon and that its program is for energy purposes.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, warned last month that Iran was “not far” from possessing a nuclear bomb.

“It’s like a puzzle. They have the pieces, and one day they could eventually put them together,” Grossi told French newspaper Le Monde.

May 12, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics, USA | Leave a comment

The Stakes of Donald Trump’s Negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

First, the United States, faithful to Trump’s Art of the Deal technique, threatened Iran while trying to placate it. International relations are not governed by the same rules as business. Giving in to threats is a sign of weakness that the Iranians could not accept in these negotiations.

by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 29 April 2025

The general public is completely unaware of the real stakes in the negotiations between Washington and Tehran. This article presents a situation in which lies have been piling up over three decades, making any progress particularly difficult. Contrary to popular belief, the nuclear issue in Iran is not whether Tehran will acquire an atomic bomb, but whether it will be able to help Palestine without resorting to weapons.

month and a half ago, I announced that even before concluding peace in Ukraine, President Donald Trump would open negotiations with Iran [1]. As usual, commentators steeped in Joe Biden’s ideology showered me with sarcasm, while my colleagues, specialists in international affairs, noted my observations [2].

The difference between the two lay in their understanding of the negotiations in Ukraine. For the former, it was Donald Trump’s revenge against Volodymyr Zelensky, or a genuflection before Vladimir Putin. For the latter, it was, on the contrary, a desire for peace with Russia in order to devote US resources to its economic recovery.

It follows that the two sides approach the Iranian issue differently. For the former, it is a matter of continuing the chaos that began during the first term with the withdrawal from the nuclear agreement (JCPOA). Conversely, for the latter, it is a desire for peace with Iran, given that it is the only regional power that supports the resistance to Israel.

In early March 2024, President Donald Trump sent a letter to the leader of the Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The existence of this document was mentioned by the author himself during his speech to Congress on March 4, and then debated in the press. According to Sky News Arabia, which read this document, Donald Trump called for negotiations, while specifying: “If you reject the outstretched hand and choose the path of escalation and support for terrorist organizations, I warn you of a swift and determined response […] I am writing this letter with the aim of opening new horizons for our relations, away from the years of conflict, misunderstandings and unnecessary confrontations that we have witnessed in recent decades […] The time has come to leave hostility behind and open a new page of cooperation and mutual respect.” A historic opportunity presents itself to us today […] We will not stand idly by in the face of your regime’s threats against our people or our allies […] If you are willing to negotiate, so are we. But if you continue to ignore the world’s demands, history will testify that you missed a great opportunity.”

Simultaneously, the United States and the United Kingdom launched several attacks against Ansar Allah in Yemen. Unlike previous attacks, these did not target hidden military targets, but rather political targets scattered among the civilian population. They therefore killed leaders of the movement and many other collateral victims, which constitutes war crimes.

It should be recalled that Ansar Allah, pejoratively referred to by Westerners as the “Houthi family gang” or “the Houthis,” attacks Israeli ships in the Red Sea in order to force Tel Aviv to agree to allow humanitarian aid to pass through to Gaza.

Washington and London, believing that this was hampering international trade, and having failed to obtain approval from the Security Council, resumed the war. They initially targeted military objectives and quickly realized that these, buried deep within the country, could not be significantly affected.

Donald Trump’s letter only arrived in Tehran on March 12, and the Iranian response was slow in coming. It is important to understand that while Tehran was flattered by Washington’s secret handwritten approach, it could not accept several aspects of its behavior.

• First, the United States, faithful to Trump’s Art of the Deal technique, threatened Iran while trying to placate it. International relations are not governed by the same rules as business. Giving in to threats is a sign of weakness that the Iranians could not accept in these negotiations. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei commented on March 28: “The enmity of the United States and Israel has always existed. They threaten to attack us, which we believe is not very likely, but if they commit a misdeed, they will certainly receive a strong blow in return.” If the enemies think they can instigate sedition in the country, the Iranian nation itself will respond to them.” President Donald Trump further emphasized this on March 30, telling NBC News: “If they don’t reach an agreement, there will be bombing. It will be bombing like they’ve never seen before.”

According to the United Nations Charter (Article 2, paragraph 4), “members of the Organization shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”
The negotiations were therefore compromised before they even began.

• Moreover, massacring the leaders of Ansar Allah was a gratuitous war crime: General Qassem Soleimani, by reorganizing the “Axis of Resistance,” had given Iran’s former proxies their complete freedom. Tehran currently has no influence, other than ideological, over Ansar Allah. Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani therefore raised these points at the United Nations [3].


• Finally, and most importantly, Donald Trump, by accumulating contradictory signals, did not allow the Iranians to assess his relations with Israel. Does he support the project of a binational state in Palestine (the one promoted by the United Nations)? Or of a Jewish state in Palestine (“Zionism”)? Or that of a “Greater Israel” (“Revisionist Zionism”)? No one knows for sure.

Ultimately, Iran sent a secret response to the secret letter from the United States, and negotiations were able to begin, but only indirectly. That is, the two delegations did not speak directly to each other, but only through a mediator. In this way, Tehran responded to the invitation, but expressed its disapproval of the manner in which it was convened.

ntervening directly, France and the United Kingdom convened a closed-door meeting of the Security Council. Paris and London wished to address several outstanding issues. As nothing has been leaked, it is unclear whether President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Keir Starmer wanted to clarify what had caused all other attempts at negotiations to fail or, on the contrary, to obscure what could have been further obscured…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.voltairenet.org/article222165.html

May 10, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Six in 10 Americans Support US Participation in a Nuclear Agreement with Iran.

Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 30 Apr 25

Majorities of Democrats and Independents support a potential deal similar to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but only a minority of Republicans agree.

For the first time since the United States withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), American and Iranian officials held direct talks to negotiate a new nuclear deal. These talks come amid reports of Iran’s rapid production of enriched uranium and acceleration of its nuclear weapons program. 

A recent Chicago Council on Global Affairs-Ipsos survey, fielded April 18–20, 2025, finds a majority of Americans consider a nuclearized Iran unacceptable and believe the United States should negotiate a deal with Tehran to limit its development. While Democrats and Independents support a deal that would trade sanctions relief for limitations on Iranian nuclear enrichment, Republicans oppose such a tradeoff. However, they may end up following US President Donald Trump’s lead if current negotiations bear fruit. 

Key Findings 

  • Eight in 10 Americans oppose Iran obtaining nuclear weapons (79%) and favor taking diplomatic steps (83%) or tightening economic sanctions (80%) to limit further nuclear enrichment.
  • A smaller majority of Americans believe the United States should participate in an agreement that lifts some international economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for strict limits on its nuclear program (61%).  
  • Partisan differences on a nuclear agreement are striking: 78 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Independents support US participation in a deal with Iran compared to just 40 percent of Republicans.
  • If diplomacy or economic sanctions fail, many Americans are willing to take more forceful approaches: Six in 10 support the United States conducting cyberattacks against Iranian computer systems (59%), and half support conducting airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities (48%).
  • A majority oppose sending US troops to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities (60%). 

Americans Favor Diplomatic Approach to Iranian Nuclear Development 

The 2015 JCPOA, or the Iran Deal, was a landmark agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany) that limited Iranian nuclear enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief and other provisions. While it was initially successful in limiting Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, the United States withdrew from the deal in 2018, as the first Trump administration considered it insufficient in curbing Iran’s ballistic missile program and protecting American regional interests. Upon the US withdrawal from the agreement, Iran promptly lifted the cap on its stockpile of uranium and increased its enrichment activities; it has since reached weapons-grade levels of enriched uranium. 

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Conclusion 

Although US President Donald Trump has not ruled out using military action to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, he said he favors a diplomatic agreement to address this issue. Recently, Trump administration officials have given contradictory remarks about current talks, and they have yet to specify how renewed negotiations will produce an agreement more stringent and impactful than its predecessor. 

The pressure is on American diplomats to secure a deal that would limit Tehran’s nuclear enrichment without providing the sanctions relief that could potentially fund Iran’s efforts to further destabilize the Middle East or threaten the United States’ regional allies, including Israel. While the outcome of these negotiations remains to be seen, the public continues to express a preference for using diplomatic or economic coercion than direct military action. https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/six-10-americans-support-us-participation-nuclear-agreement-iran?fbclid=IwY2xjawKA64xleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFISGV5ZEdSZW16a2ZnQzh3AR7iwwVkEnczI_DJHzOGHWvNWeSlg2xdd9YJCsBz0_OiQmJcM48Ujd0ZNX8ZNQ_aem_5kroZ8t3KQ5RgYf4EfYdDA

May 3, 2025 Posted by | Iran, public opinion, USA | Leave a comment

Trump’s transactional instincts could help forge a new Iran nuclear deal

Mohamad Bazzi, 265 Apr https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/25/trump-iran-nuclear-deal

The president has a chance to make good on his reputation as a dealmaker as Iran moves closer to a nuclear weapon.

In May 2018, Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed American sanctions that crippled the Iranian economy. Trump tore up the 2015 agreement, which had taken years for Iran to negotiate with six world powers, under which Tehran limited its nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions. Trump insisted he would be able to negotiate a better pact than the one reached by Barack Obama’s administration.

Today, in his second term as president, Trump is eager to fix the Iran deal he broke nearly seven years ago.

While Trump’s overall foreign policy has been chaotic and has alienated traditional US allies in Europe and elsewhere, he has an opportunity to reach an agreement with Iran that eluded Joe Biden. Since Trump walked away from the original deal, Iran has moved closer to having a nuclear weapon than it has ever been. It has enriched enough uranium close to weapons-grade quality to make six nuclear bombs, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). But analysts believe that even after enriching enough uranium for a bomb, Iran would still need up to a year to develop an actual nuclear warhead that could be deployed on a ballistic missile.

Last month, Trump sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader, the 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying the US wanted to negotiate a new deal. Trump followed up with a public threat, saying if Iran’s leaders did not agree to renewed talks, they would be subjected to “bombing the likes of which they have never seen before”. After Trump’s threats and a buildup of US forces in the Middle East, Iran’s military said it would respond to any attack by targeting US bases in the region, which house thousands of American troops.

But Iranian leaders also agreed to indirect negotiations, rather than the direct talks Trump had proposed. Trump dispatched his special envoy, the real estate developer Steve Witkoff, to lead a team of US negotiators to meet indirectly with top Iranian officials, including the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi. The two sides held two rounds of productive talks so far this month, under the mediation of Oman. And the US and Iranian teams are due to meet again this weekend in Muscat, the capital of Oman, where they will start talks on technical details of a potential agreement.

While Trump and Iran’s leaders both changed their tones in recent weeks, there are many obstacles before a deal can be reached, including hardliners in Iran and Washington, as well as opposition from Israel’s rightwing government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who has spent years working to undermine negotiations between the US and Iran. The main barrier will be whether the Trump administration insists on a total dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program – the so-called “Libya model”, named after the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who decided to eliminate his country’s nuclear weapons program in 2003 under pressure from the US. But that decision deprived Gaddafi of a major lever to stave off western military intervention after the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, which led to his regime’s fall and his killing by Libyan rebels.

Some foreign policy hawks in Washington, including Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, insist on this maximalist strategy, which echoes Netanyahu’s demand that Iran must completely dismantle its nuclear enrichment activity and infrastructure as part of any deal with the US. If Trump takes a similar approach, negotiations would probably break down and Trump could follow through on his threat to carry out military strikes.

Iran has made clear that it will not agree to the total end of its nuclear program, but would accept a verification-based approach, as it did under the 2015 deal negotiated by the Obama administration along with China, France, Russia, the UK and Germany, together with the European Union. That type of agreement would place strict limits on Iran’s ability to enrich uranium and impose an inspections regime involving international monitors. Several of Trump’s advisers, including Witkoff and the vice-president, JD Vance, seem to favor this solution.

“I think he wants to deal with Iran with respect,” Witkoff said of Trump’s outreach to the Iranian regime, in a long interview last month with Tucker Carlson, the rightwing media host who has been highly critical of Republican hawks agitating for war with Iran. “He wants to build trust with them, if it’s possible.”

Iran’s leaders apparently got that message – and have tried to stroke Trump’s ego and convey that they respect him in ways they never respected Biden. In a Washington Post op-ed published on 8 April, Iran’s foreign minister seemed to be speaking to Trump directly when he blamed the failure of earlier negotiations on a “lack of real determination by the Biden administration”. Araghchi also played to Trump’s oft-repeated desire to be a peacemaker who ends America’s legacy of forever wars, writing: “We cannot imagine President Trump wanting to become another US president mired in a catastrophic war in the Middle East.”

And the minister appealed to Trump’s reputation as a deal-maker, citing the “trillion-dollar opportunity” that would benefit US companies if they could gain access to Iran after a diplomatic agreement. Iran’s leaders evidently understand that Trump loves to frame his foreign policy as being guided by his desire to secure economic deals and benefits for American businesses.

In this case, Trump’s transactional instincts and bulldozer style of negotiations could lead to a positive outcome, avoiding war with Iran and undermining the hardliners in Washington, Iran and Israel. Trump has already adopted a significant shift toward Tehran from his first term, when he had insisted that Iran was the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and the greatest threat to US interests in the Middle East.

After he took office in 2017, Trump wanted to tear up the Iran deal partly because it was one of Obama’s major foreign policy accomplishments. Trump also surrounded himself with hawkish advisers who reinforced the danger of an Iranian threat, including HR McMaster, who served as national security adviser, and James Mattis, who was defense secretary. Both men commanded US troops during the occupation of Iraq, and they fought Iraqi militias funded by Iran. Trump later appointed John Bolton, another neoconservative and advocate of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, as his national security adviser.

In his second term, Trump has banished most of the neocons from his administration. Trump also seems to realize that Netanyahu could become one of the biggest obstacles to an Iran deal, as he was during the Obama and Biden administrations. It was no accident that the president announced his plan for renewed talks with Iran while Netanyahu sat beside him at an Oval Office meeting on 7 April. Netanyahu had arranged a hasty visit to Washington to seek an exemption from Trump on new tariffs on Israeli exports. But he left empty-handed and embarrassed by Trump’s Iran announcement. That meeting was a signal to Iran’s leaders: that Trump would not allow Netanyahu to steamroll him, as the Israeli premier had done with other US presidents.

If Trump continues to resist Netanyahu, along with hawkish Republicans and some of his own advisers, he might well be able to negotiate a dramatic deal with Iran – and repair the nuclear crisis he unleashed years ago.

  • Mohamad Bazzi is the director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern studies and a journalism professor at New York University.

April 27, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

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