March
3, 2023
United
Nations — The U.S. and other global powers are grappling with how to respond to
the recent discovery of uranium particles in Iran that were enriched up to
almost 84% — very close to the purity required to make nuclear weapons. A team
of inspectors from the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) found the tiny amount of high enriched uranium at one of Iran's nuclear
facilities during a scheduled visit and included it in their report.
The
IAEA report, obtained by CBS News, noted the discovery of some particles
enriched to 83.7% at the Fordow nuclear plant, but did not conclude that Iran
was stockpiling uranium enriched above 60%, which the world already knew Iran
was doing. Any uranium refined to over 60% purity is considered high enriched,
and at any such level it is a relatively short technological step to achieve
the 90% required for weapons.
Iran
has long said it does not intend to build nuclear weapons and insisted that its
atomic work is entirely for civilian medical and research purposes. The country
explained the latest findings of the IAEA team as the result of
"unintended fluctuations."
Iran
has methodically ramped up its enrichment program for several years — without
hiding the moves — as a response to the U.S. government, under former President
Donald Trump in 2018, unilaterally withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal
(known by the acronym JCPOA) that imposed limits on its atomic work.
Negotiations
to strike a new deal or revise the one the U.S. walked away from have
foundered, and various signatories to the pact, which include Iran, Russia,
China, France, Germany, the U.K. and U.S., have been alarmed by every one of
the steps forward by Iran in the interim. The discovery of even trace amounts
of uranium enriched so close to 90% set alarm bells ringing yet again this
week.
"We
are highly concerned by the IAEA Director's General confirmation of the
presence of high enriched uranium (HEU) particles containing up to 83.7% U-235
at the Fordow facility," Peter Stano, lead spokesman for Foreign Affairs
and Security Policy of the European Commission, told CBS News.
Stano
said discussions between the IAEA and Iran to clarify the matter were ongoing
and expected to conclude "soon," but he didn't speculate on their
outcome.
Some
JCPOA signatories including the U.S. argue there is no legitimate need in a
civilian nuclear program for uranium enriched to even 60%, which they note is
well above the limit that had been imposed by the agreement. The pact limited
Iran's uranium stockpile to 661 pounds and its enrichment level to 3.67%, which
is what's needed for the country's nuclear power plants.
Next
step: Censuring Iran?
A
report in The Wall Street Journal cited diplomats involved in the discussions
as saying the U.S. and its European nations were split on how to respond to the
findings in the latest IAEA report. A high-ranking U.S. official familiar with
the talks told CBS News, however, that there was "no split," but the
U.S. was concerned by the revelation.
Israel,
a staunch foe of Iran, has said it will not allow the Islamic republic to
achieve weapons-grade enrichment of uranium, laying it down as a "red
line."
"At
this point, the question is whether there should be a censure resolution against
Iran at the IAEA's Board of Governors next week," Ali Vaez, of the
International Crisis Group thinktank, told CBS News, referring to the mechanism
within the agency by through which its global members can lodge a formal
complaint.
IAEA
Director-General Rafael Grossi arrived Friday in Iran, and Veaz said if he
manages to resolve at least some of the concerns during his one-day visit,
"especially the 84% enrichment issue, then it [a formal censure of Iran]
can be avoided."
Vaez
said the only "disagreement" among the Western powers was that the
"U.S. prefers to wait for the outcome of the trip before it decides about
censuring Iran, whereas the Europeans seem keen on doing it anyway."
The
IAEA said in its report that it would "increase the frequency and
intensity of agency verification activities" at Fordow given the discovery
of the high enriched uranium particles.
The
European Union has been pushing hard to wrap up the ongoing talks about
reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
Spano,
of the European Commission, which is the EU's executive branch, said the new
concerns about Iran's enrichment activities "only underlines how important
it is to conclude the talks about reviving the JCPOA as soon as possible, since
this deal provides an international oversight of Iran's nuclear program and
would bring Iran back to respecting and fulfilling its commitments."
Divisions roil Iranian-American protest movement
March
2, 2023
Amir
still has scars from the torture he endured at the hands of SAVAK, the secret
police force that used violent repression to crack down on dissent when Iran
was ruled by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Growing
up in an impoverished area of southern Iran, Amir became involved in leftist
political activity as a student. He wrote for an underground paper, read banned
books and attended rallies.
Those
activities marked him as a dissident, and he was detained by SAVAK in 1974.
Speaking with Al Jazeera by phone, Amir — who asked that his full name be
withheld for his safety — recalled being beaten with cables and electrocuted
for hours at a time.
Afterwards,
when he used the restroom, he saw his face, distorted and bloody, in his
reflection in the water.
Given
the brutality he faced for his activism, it came as a surprise to Amir that he
found himself facing supporters of the shah in what seemed an unlikely place: a
protest in the United States.
Demonstrations
erupted in Iran and across the world after a 22-year-old Kurdish woman named
Mahsa Amini died in September after being arrested by Iran’s morality police.
Inspired
by the protests unfolding in his home country, Amir, who has been living in the
United States for decades now, decided to join rallies planned in his area.
But
the demonstrations have underscored for Amir the bitter divisions within the
Iranian diaspora, including between those who see both the shah and the
country’s current religious leaders as authoritarians and those who look back
on the shah with fondness.
“Now,
before I attend a rally, I look up which organisation is hosting it,” Amir
said. “If there are going to be people supporting the shah, I don’t want to be
around them.”
Bitter
divisions
If
signs bearing the image of the late shah or his son Reza Pahlavi were hard for
Amir to stomach, the presence of another figure at a recent US rally left him
aghast: Parviz Sabeti, a former high-level SAVAK official.
Sabeti
attended the rally on February 11, and photos of that day set off a storm of
controversy, with some saying that his presence undermined calls for a
democratic Iran.
“I
thought this was unbelievable,” said Amir, who saw the pictures circulated over
social media. “When I saw him [Sabeti], it was like he was mocking us. The
beatings, the torture, it all came back. It was like I was in jail all over
again.”
Support
for the shah is difficult to quantify, and the Iranian-American community
contains a wide variety of views on Iran’s political situation.
A
petition calling for the younger Pahlavi to lead the protest movement has
garnered more than 450,000 signatures on the website Change.org.
Speaking
with the news outlet Politico at the Munich Security Conference in February,
Pahlavi said he should not be held responsible for the actions of his father.
“People understand how crucial my role can be in a transition,” he said.
But
for those like Amir, the pressure to pick between supporters of the shah and
the current Islamic Republic is a false choice.
“My
hope for Iran is that people will be able to read what they want, to say what
they want. The Iranian people don’t want to live under a dictator, whether the
shah or the current government,” he said. “I want freedom for the Iranian
people, that’s all.”
Schisms
over how the US should deal with the current government have also been a source
of contention and, at times, hostility.
Negar
Mortazavi, an Iranian-born analyst and reporter who lives in exile in the
United States, said such debates have become increasingly fraught since the
protests kicked off, with some seeing any engagement with the Iranian
government as a form of accommodation.
“These
are complicated issues, and there is a lot of disagreement within the
diaspora,” Mortazavi told Al Jazeera in a recent phone call. “But there has
been an effort by more hardcore anti-regime activists to smear anyone who
speaks critically about, say, the impact of US sanctions or in favour of
diplomacy as a supporter of the regime.”
Mortazavi
said she and her family have been subjected to a wave of rape and death threats
over what critics characterise as her “advocacy” for the government, an
accusation she strongly denies.
“People
feel frustrated because the forces of repression inside of Iran are beyond
their control,” she said, “so they go after scapegoats.”
Mortazavi
said some of the most ferocious online activity is driven by what appear to be
bot accounts. She believes the presence of these automated accounts indicates
the involvement of states with an interest in pushing a more hawkish approach
to Iran.
Since
the administration of former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew
from a deal that had prohibited Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the
United Nations has expressed concern that Iran is moving closer to obtaining
the materials necessary to build one.
Iran,
however, has long denied reports it plans to build a nuclear weapon.
Even
within Iran, the future of the current protest movement remains an open
question. Many critics consider the demonstrations to be the most robust
challenge to the current government in years. But a harsh crackdown has killed
hundreds of protesters, according to foreign-based human rights organisations,
and Iranian security forces have been accused of torture and forced
confessions.
It
is a playbook that strikes Amir as familiar.
“I
left Iran in 1981 because I knew what kind of people they were. They were the
same as the shah,” he said, referring to the Muslim leaders who seized power
after the shah’s ouster in 1979. “The people of Iran did not want a
dictatorship.”
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