US vows to keep pressuring Iran on anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death

"It is now time to implement the agreement ... A return of IAEA inspectors and the resumption of safeguards implementation in Iran would serve as a good sign that agreements and understandings are possible," Grossi said at the IAEA General Conference in Vienna on Monday.

Grossi's remarks come a week after Iran and the IAEA signed a new agreement in Cairo on the practical modalities to resume inspection activities in Iran. He described the new arrangement as a framework to resume technical work and rebuild trust.

“Now it’s up to us together, Iran and the agency to implement it, restore confidence, and move forward,” he said.

The deal appeared to break an impasse between the UN nuclear watchdog and Tehran after the latter refused to let inspectors resume their work following surprise US and Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear sites in June.

But Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi appeared to swiftly add a note of caution following its inking, saying details and restored relations must yet be explored.

Peace in peril

Grossi said that when the agency can fully carry out its mandate and answer all outstanding questions, “there will be no doubt and peace is guaranteed.”

“When that ability is compromised or limited, or when we cannot do what we are supposed to do, then international peace and security are indeed at risk,” Grossi added.

Grossi warned that history had shown the dangers of restricting the agency’s work, saying, “We have seen this throughout history, particularly though not only in the Middle East, and dramatically last June in Iran."

Israel launched a surprise military campaign on June 13 targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites, including senior commanders and nuclear officials in a conflict that lasted 12 days.

On June 22, the United States joined the campaign, striking nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Washington brokered a ceasefire on June 24.

In response, Iran’s parliament passed legislation suspending all cooperation with the IAEA, but international pressure has grown for Tehran to restore ties with the agency.

Last month, France, Germany and the United Kingdom triggered the UN snapback sanctions mechanism, leaving a 30-day window for diplomacy before sanctions are due to take effect on October 18.

One of the demands of the three European countries is the immediate resumption of full work between Iran and IAEA.

However, ultraconservative lawmaker Hamid Rasaee said Sunday that the deal with the IAEA contains no clause preventing the reimposition of UN sanctions on Tehran under the snapback mechanism.

"When a rootless child-killing criminal like @Netanyahu calls himself 'the frontline of American civilization', you can’t blame Americans if they feel like suicide," Ali Larijani wrote on X.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Netanyahu on Monday and both hailed the unity of their two nations in confronting threats they say Iran poses.

Larijani is a relative moderate and veteran insider who was elevated to lead Iran's Supreme National Security Council following a 12-day war in which Israel and the United States pounded Iranian nuclear and military sites, leaving hundreds dead.

It was unclear what Larijani meant by the assertions. "Rootless cosmopolitan" was a slur deployed in the Soviet Union directed at intellectual figures and particularly Jews, and the descriptor has been consistently deployed by anti-Semitic polemicists.

Critics of Israel have frequently scorned the relatively recent arrival of its leaders or their families from other countries in the twentieth century.

The Israeli premier's father, who was born in Poland as Benzion Mileikowsky, later adopted the Biblical surname Netanyahu and became a preeminent scholar or early modern Spain.

Larijani's assertion on the United States was less direct and could have been a reference to a fraught moment in American politics as political polarization deepens in the wake of the assassination of prominent political commentator Charlie Kirk.

Holding a PhD in philosophy and the rank of brigadier general in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Larijani has long plied a deft course around public debates which have divided Iran's ruling factions.

Larijani also serves as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's personal representative to the key decision-making SNSC, an apparent key endorsement by Tehran's top authority.

His new mandate is widely seen as righting Iran's security tack after lapses allowing Israeli attacks to kill nuclear scientists along with hundreds of military personnel and civilians.

In the sensitive new role, Larijani has stepped up the frequency and edge of his social media criticism of Israel and the United States, especially following the 12-day war in June.

"There should be no doubt that last week’s attacks on Doha were pure terrorism; proof that the Tel Aviv regime has cast aside every moral and legal restraint," Pezeshkian told an emergency summit of Arab and Islamic leaders in Doha on Monday.

The Iranian president said the strike was a pre-planned attempt to destroy diplomatic efforts to end the war in Gaza.

“This aggression against diplomacy is more than a crime; it is an open and shameless declaration that now military power, and not law, is decisive,” he added.

Israeli warplanes bombed a Hamas office in Doha on Tuesday, in what Israel described as ac targeted attack against the group’s senior leadership.

They missed their intended targets, killing a Qatari security official and five lower-ranking Hamas personnel.

Qatar denounced the attack as “criminal and cowardly,” while Iran called it an “extremely dangerous” violation of sovereignty and international law.

Pezeshkian accused the United States and Western powers of giving Israel decades of impunity through vetoes, trade and diplomatic protection.

“When a rogue regime receives weapons, financing and diplomatic support under any circumstances, it learns that there are no limits. History will remember the guilt of those who supported this aggression,” he said.

“The Zionist regime has declared war against our sovereignty, dignity and future. We will not be intimidated, we will not be divided, and we will not remain silent. From the ashes of Gaza, justice will rise. From the rubble of destroyed buildings in Doha, Beirut, Tehran, Damascus and Sanaa, a new order will emerge,” Pezeshkian said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said on Monday he would not rule out further strikes on Hamas leaders “wherever they are.”

The September 9 strike in Doha marked a sharp escalation of Israel’s campaign, in a region already convulsed by conflict since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks that ignited an ongoing war in Gaza.

It appeared to push a negotiated solution to the Gaza conflict further away and left in doubt the next chapter of a regional confrontation pitting Iran against Israel and the United States.

Amjad Amini, Mahsa’s father, marked the date with a message on Instagram. “Kurdistan and Iran will never forget the withering of their flowers’ smiles and beauty. We will never forget the butterflies of joy on her lips,” he wrote. The family hailed from Iran's Kurdish minority.

Mahsa Amini, aged 22, was arrested by Iran's morality police in Tehran on September 13, 2022. She died three days later in hospital from injuries sustained in custody, sparking mass protests across Iran.

The demonstrations dubbed the Woman, Life, Freedom movement were quashed with deadly force.

Relatives of victims, sources told Iran International on condition of anonymity, have in recent days been called to intelligence offices in Tehran and other provinces or contacted by phone with warnings not to gather.

Similar tactics were reported in the past two years as authorities sought to prevent public commemorations for Amini and others killed during the crackdown.

A father’s vow

Despite renewed pressure, Amjad Amini published his message on September 14 in remembrance of his daughter.

“The memory and demand for justice for Mahsa 'Jina' and the other slain protesters will never be forgotten,” he wrote using her Kurdish name, adding that her absence remains “a volcano burning eternally in our hearts.”

He also recalled that September 15 would mark the third anniversary of her “state killing,” as he has consistently described it.

Independent rights groups say at least 551 people, including 68 children, were killed during the 2022 uprising sparked by Amini’s death.

Over the weekend, exiled Iranians staged demonstrations in European countries including Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Britain, Denmark, Germany, France and Cyprus as well as in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The gatherings paid homage to Mahsa Amini and other victims and aimed to raise awareness on the plight of political prisoners in Iran.

They pledged unity and opposition to Iran as diplomatic calls intensify to end a new Israeli offensive in Gaza against Iran-backed Hamas fighters and blessed a European initiative to restore United Nations sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear activities.

"(Iran) chanted, 'Death to America, Death to Israel.' To achieve Death to America, they have to achieve first death to Israel, because we are America's front line here," Netanyahu said.

"They began to race to the bomb ... and so they began to work secretly to activate their weaponization team," Netanyahu said without citing any publicly available evidence. "We knew that if we didn't act within a year they'd have one atomic bomb, possibly two."

Israel launched a 12-day war in June which killed Iranian nuclear scientists along with hundreds of military personnel and civilians, capped off with US bombings of three key nuclear sites.

31 Israeli civilians and an off-duty soldier were killed in Iranian counterattacks.

'Change course'

The joint appearance came as the US-Israeli posture on a post-war Iran remained unclear. US President Donald Trump said the attacks had 'obliterated' Iran's nuclear program and has been ambivalent about the need for further diplomacy.

European powers have urged renewed talks to end the nuclear standoff once and for all, while Israel continues to moot attacks on its foe while Iran remains defiant.

Rubio said the threat from Iran extended beyond Israel to the Persian Gulf and beyond, adding that missiles Tehran sought to build could have reached Europe.

He added that if the Islamic Republic does not "change course," the administration will continue to apply "maximum pressure" sanctions.

Britain, France and Germany last month triggered the so-called snapback mechanism enshrined in a partly lapsed 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran to restore international sanctions within 30 days over Iran's alleged non-compliance.

Iran denies seeking a nuclear bomb or threatening the West and labels the sanctions move diplomatic blackmail aimed at its sovereignty. Tehran has threatened to halt cooperation with UN nuclear inspectors advanced by an interim deal with the inspectors last week if the sanctions move goes ahead.

Rubio said he supported the European initiative "100%" and that Iran had obviously violated its nuclear obligations.

Israel is continuing a push to overrun Gaza City to crush Hamas fighters there and release hostages - a campaign which has drawn criticism from the United Nations and rights groups but is supported by Washington.

Netanyahu said that military successes over Iran did not void the need for an Israeli victory in Gaza.

"We acted like somebody who has two lumps of cancer. One lump is the atomic cancer, the specter of atomic bombs, and the second one is the specter of 20,000 ballistic missiles, one ton ballistic missiles that fall Mach six to Mach eight right from the sky," he said.

"We were fighting not only our enemies. We were fighting your enemies, and now we're circling back to Gaza to finish the job where it all began."