ACC boss’ $32,000 trip, Nicola Willis teases her Budget plans and the death toll remains unknown after devastating Papua New Guinea landslide in the latest NZ Herald headlines.
Iran is seeking to have economic sanctions imposed over the country’s controversial nuclear programme lifted in exchange for slowing the programme down. The programme - as all matters of state in Iran - is under the guidance of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and that likely won’t change following the helicopter crash last week that killed Iran’s president and foreign minister.
The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency also comes against the backdrop of heightened tensions in the wider Middle East over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Israel and Iran have carried out direct strikes on each other’s territory for the first time last month.
The report, seen by the Associated Press, said as of May 11, Iran has 142.1 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60 per cent - an increase of 20.6kg since the last report by the UN watchdog in February. Uranium enriched at 60 per cent purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent.
By the IAEA’s definition, around 42kg of uranium enriched to 60 per cent is the amount at which creating one atomic weapon is theoretically possible - if the material is enriched further, to 90 per cent.
Also as of May 11, the report says Iran’s overall stockpile of enriched uranium stands at 6201.3kg which represents an increase of 675.8kg since the IAEA’s previous report.
Iran has maintained its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only, but IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi has previously warned Tehran has enough uranium enriched to near-weapons-grade levels to make “several” nuclear bombs if it chose to do so. He has acknowledged the UN agency cannot guarantee none of Iran’s centrifuges may have been peeled away for clandestine enrichment.
Tensions have grown between Iran and the IAEA since 2018, when then-US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. Since then, Iran has abandoned all limits the deal put on its programme and quickly stepped up enrichment.
Under the original nuclear deal, struck in 2015, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium only up to 3.67 per cent purity, maintain a stockpile of about 300kg and use only very basic IR-1 centrifuges - machines that spin uranium gas at high speed for enrichment purposes.
The 2015 deal saw Tehran agree to limit enrichment of uranium to levels necessary for generating nuclear power in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. At the time, UN inspectors were tasked with monitoring the programme.
Monday’s report also said Tehran has not reconsidered its September 2023 decision to bar IAEA inspectors from further monitoring its nuclear programme and added that it expects Iran “to do so in the context of the ongoing consultations between the (IAEA) agency and Iran”.
A locator map for Iran and its capital, Tehran. Photo / AP
According to the report, Grossi “deeply regrets” Iran’s decision to bar inspectors - and a reversal of that decision “remains essential to fully allow the agency to conduct its verification activities in Iran effectively”.
The deaths of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian have triggered a pause in the IAEA’s talks with Tehran over improving co-operation, the report acknowledged.
Before the May 19 helicopter crash, Iran had agreed to hold technical negotiations with IAEA on May 20, following a visit by Grossi earlier in the month. But those meetings fell apart due to the crash. Iran then sent a letter on May 21, saying its nuclear team wants to continue discussions in Tehran “on an appropriate date that will be mutually agreed upon”, the report said.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director-general Rafael Grossi. Photo / AP
The report also said Iran has still not provided answers to the IAEA’s years-long investigation about the origin and current location of man-made uranium particles found at two locations Tehran has failed to declare as potential nuclear sites, Varamin and Turquzabad.
It said the IAEA’s request need to be resolved, otherwise the the agency “will not be able to confirm the correctness and completeness of Iran’s declarations” under a safeguards agreement between Tehran and the nuclear watchdog.
The report also said there was no progress so far in reinstalling more monitoring equipment, including cameras, removed in June 2022. Since then, the only recorded data is that of IAEA cameras installed at a centrifuge workshop in the city of Isfahan in May 2023 - although Iran has not provided the IAEA with access to this data.
The IAEA said that on May 21, IAEA inspectors after a delay in April “successfully serviced the cameras at the workshops in Isfahan and the data they had collected since late December 2023 were placed under separate Agency seals and Iranian seals at the locations”.
