Iran Takes Issue With UN Nuclear Chief’s Welcome In Israel

During the meeting with Grossi on Friday, Bennett reiterated that Israel has the right to halt the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program if the international community fails to do so.

The Israeli premier expressed mounting concerns about the danger of Iran’s progress in acquiring nuclear weapons, while “misleading the international community.” He urged the world to take action against Iran to prevent it from becoming a nuclear state.

The quick visit comes amid stalled Iran nuclear talks days and after Bennett published documents this week that he said can prove “Iran stole classified documents from the UN’s Atomic Agency and used that information to systematically evade nuclear probes.”

Earlier in the week, Israel's National Security Council chairman Eyal Hulata met his US counterpart Jake Sullivan in Washington, and announced their agreement to coordinate on efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and destabilizing the region.

The Vienna talks to restore the 2015 nuclear deal have stalled mainly because of Iran’s demand for the US to remove the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) from its terrorism list (FTO) and the recent missile attacks have shed more doubts whether Washington would take such a step.

A tweet issued by Beijing’s permanent mission to UN bodies in Vienna cited a foreign ministry spokesman opposing “relevant countries’ moves to pressure” Tehran by raising a resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) quarterly board meeting due June 6-10.

Although United States State Department spokesman Ned Price appeared lukewarm over the prospect Wednesday, saying just that discussions with “allies and partners” were underway, the tone changed in the Thursday briefing. Price said, “we can confirm that we plan to join the UK, France, and Germany in seeking a resolution focused on the need for Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA.”

The US and European states have reportedly held back from such a move over the past year so as not to undermine talks in Vienna aimed at restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

But recent disclosures from Israel – purporting to show Iran using pilfered IAEA documents to “systematically evade nuclear probes” – have energized critics of the JCPOA and of the US approach. John Bolton, National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump, earlier this week slammed the Biden administration for being “unable or unwilling to admit failure in its humiliating pursuit of America rejoining the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.”

Thursday’s statement from China argued that a “confrontational approach” at the IAEA board meeting would “undermine cooperation” between Iran and the IAEA and “disrupt [the] negotiation process.” Price insisted Wednesday that an agreement on restoring the JCPOA was within reach.

Talks remain on hold

China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the US are all among the 35 members of the IAEA board. Even if a critical resolution passed, it would meet opposition, and would not – as was the case in 2005-6 – be part of a process leading to Iran’s condemnation and sanction at the UN Security Council, where both China and Russia hold vetoes.

Iran has said a recent IAEA report suggesting it had not answered the agency’s questions over the pre-2003 nuclear work did not “reflect the reality of the negotiations between Iran and the IAEA.” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian reportedly warned Thursday – during a phone call with his Singaporean counterpart Vivian Balakrishnan – that “political interference” in IAEA affairs, meaning a resolution at the board, would be “unconstructive.”

Amir-Abdollahian said the “technical progress” from “a mutually satisfactory agreement” with IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi should not be upset by “a hasty political statement.”

But some analysts have argued that Iran has deliberately played up disagreements with the IAEA, and accelerated its nuclear program, to raise pressure in the Vienna talks. The recent agency report that Iran has 43.3kg (95lb) of uranium enriched to 60 percent, up nearly 10kg (22lb) in three months, clearly illustrated Iran’s growing breaches of the JCPOA, whose limits it began exceeding in 2019 after the US in 2018 left the agreement and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions.

Both opponents and supporters of the JCPOA argue their arguments are strengthened by Iran accumulating near sufficient highly-enriched uranium to fashion a crude nuclear device. Either way, talks to revive the 2015 deal remain on hold.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with his Israeli counterpart Dr. Eyal Hulata and their respective senior representatives from foreign policy, military and intelligence agencies in Washington on Wednesday.

The meeting was part of coordination efforts within the framework of the US-Israeli Strategic Consultative Group (SGC).

Israel has been voicing concern over the Biden Administration policy of reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, JCPOA, which would mean lifting economic sanctions, while Tehran pursues an aggressive regional policy against US allies in the region.

The year-long negotiations in Vienna to revive the deal stalled in March and Iran is said to have continued uranium enrichment to the point of now having enough fissile material to produce a bomb.

“The officials committed to coordinate on efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and toward deterring Iran’s aggressive regional activities. They also discussed economic and diplomatic steps to achieve these goals and reviewed ongoing cooperation between the U.S. and Israeli militaries,” the White House said.

David Albright, a former United Nations nuclear inspector told Iran International Wednesday that Iran has reached a nuclear breakout point and much more pressure is needed to dissuade Tehran from pursuing weaponization. One part of such a pressure policy should be more US support for Israel and other allies in the region.

In an interview on Wednesday, David Albright, founder and president of Institute for Science and International Security said the Islamic Republic has accumulated enough highly enriched uranium to make a nuckear weapon. He told Iran International's Fardad Farahzad, “Iran has reached this critical period where its breakout time is zero. And what that means is that now it has enough highly enriched uranium to fashion a nuclear weapon.”

However, assembling a nuclear weapon would take some additional time, Albright said and added, “But it may not be as long as some have argued. We don’t know how quickly Iran could make nuclear weapons today.”

While the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been monitoring Iran’s overt nuclear activities focused on uranium enrichment, the agency does not have full access to inspect every suspected military facility that might be engaged in weapons design and testing.

Albright, a physicist and an IAEA inspector in the 1990s, explained that the world does not know what kind of a nuclear device Iran would decide to make.

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“They may choose to make a crude nuclear explosive to detonate underground, or to deliver it crudely or through crude methods like truck or ship. That could happen over the course of several months, less than six months. They may want, on the other hand, to focus on just building a warhead for a ballistic missile; that could take longer, a year or two. So again, the critical thing is that they have reached the zero-breakout time,” he explained.

Referring to Iran’s clandestine AMAD nuclear program in the 2000s, Albright said the plan was to accumulate enough fissile material to build five bombs, but once the secret was disclosed in 2002, Tehran abandoned the scheme under great international pressure. “So, in a way it's closer to nuclear weapons now than it was in the height of its crash nuclear weapons program in the early 2000s. So, this is a major milestone,” the former IAEA inspector said.

Iran has demonstrated that it could advance quickly in the absence of international restrictions on its nuclear program, Albright said, referring to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA, or any new version of it.

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In addition to Iran's ability to quickly resurrect and advance its program, the JCPOA is “is very time-bound,” he said, referring to the sunset clauses of the original agreement, adding, “It doesn't last very long, so it's a temporary fix-at best. And there are some problems in getting in that deal.”

To stop Iran at this juncture could also take another strategy Albright said – the strategy of increasing pressure on Tehran. “It's not the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign, it's much more. It would involve Europeans and the US and other allies working very closely together to increase pressure on Iran. It would involve stigmatizing Iran even more; like Russia's being stigmatized.”

Albright went on to say that a strategy of intense pressure would involve more support for Israel and other allied countries in the Middle East, “to push harder against Iran.”

He predicted that whether now or in the future the time will come for a tough pressure policy to stop the Islamic Republic from becoming a nuclear power.

“So, I think that's a path, and that's probably the path we're headed on. Maybe a nuclear deal could postpone this path, being launched for a few years perhaps. But there are real obstacles to getting that deal. And I think we are now headed into a period where pressure is going to increase on Iran.”

At a dinner by the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee of New Jersey, Menendez stressed the need for a new Iran strategy and an end to year-long negotiations with Iran to restore the JCPOA.

“It is time to tell the Europeans, who[m] we have shown good faith with, that we were willing to enter into what was hopefully a stronger and longer deal, that the Iranians are not there,” Menendez said according to Jewish Insider.

Menendez, who is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, first expressed misgivings about the Biden Administration’s Iran approach in a speech on the Senate floor in early February.

Menendez revealed in his remarks that he has demanded a classified hearing to find out what the administration’s strategy is and said, “in the absence of hearing a plan in a classified setting, then I intend to create… legislation that will ultimately dictate what a plan should be.”

The powerful Senate Democrat demanded that Biden should enforce oil export sanctions currently on the books against Iran. Since Biden’s election Tehran has increased its oil exports to nearly one million barrels a day, mostly in illicit shipments to China.

He also emphasized the need for military deterrence against Iran, “to defend our people and our interests"