Latest news with #JointComprehensivePlanofAction
NDTV
3 hours ago
- Politics
- NDTV
Satellite Images Show Massive Damage To Iran's Arak Nuclear Facility
New Delhi: Satellite pictures from Maxar Technologies, dated June 19, confirm that Israel's recent airstrike caused substantial structural damage to Iran's heavy water reactor facility at Arak, also known as Khondab, roughly 250 kilometres southwest of Tehran. The high-resolution images reveal the collapse of the upper section of the reactor dome alongside visible destruction to adjacent infrastructure, including distillation towers. While Iranian authorities acknowledged that "projectiles" had struck the compound, they did not initially disclose the extent of the destruction. The satellite images provide the most detailed visual confirmation of the Israeli strike's impact. Facility Designed For Plutonium Production Though not operational at the time of the strike, the Arak facility has remained under close observation by nuclear experts due to its technical capacity to produce plutonium, a material that, like highly enriched uranium, can be used to construct a nuclear weapon. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. Arak was originally conceived in the 1990s following Iran's decision to pursue a nuclear capability in response to the 1980-88 war with Iraq. Unable to procure a heavy water reactor from international sources, Tehran opted to develop its own. According to the Associated Press, heavy water reactors differ from light water reactors in that they use deuterium oxide (heavy water) as a neutron moderator, enabling the use of natural uranium and the production of plutonium as a byproduct. The Israeli Strikes Over the past week, Israel has acknowledged strikes on Natanz, Isfahan, Karaj, and Tehran, describing the campaign as a preemptive measure to degrade Iran's nuclear capabilities and prevent any progress toward weaponisation. Video footage released by the Israel Defense Forces shows precision-guided munitions hitting the reactor dome, followed by a plume of fire and debris. The footage, though brief, was consistent with Maxar's satellite imagery showing the collapse of the reactor dome's crown structure. In a statement, Israeli officials said the attack was "intended to target the plutonium-producing component of the Khondab reactor in order to prevent its restoration and eventual use for military nuclear development." The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog, has confirmed that there was no radiological release from the Arak facility, noting that the reactor was not yet loaded with fuel and had never entered operational status. Nevertheless, the agency expressed "serious concern" over the precedent of military attacks on nuclear installations. Arak's Role In 2015 Nuclear Deal The Arak reactor was a contentious point during the negotiations of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers. As part of that agreement, Iran pledged to redesign the reactor to significantly reduce its plutonium output and render part of the core inoperable by pouring concrete into it. Yet, following the US withdrawal from the agreement in 2018 under US President Donald Trump, progress on the redesign halted. In 2019, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation at the time, revealed on Iranian state television that duplicate parts had been secretly procured to allow for the potential reassembly of the disabled components. Inspectors from the IAEA have repeatedly said since then that due to limitations imposed by Iranian authorities, the agency lost "continuity of knowledge" regarding both the reactor's configuration and heavy water stockpiles.
Euronews
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Euronews
EU to influence Iran nuclear talks from sidelines in Geneva
The foreign ministers of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom - collectively known as the E3 - will meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva to discuss Iran's nuclear program in Geneva on Friday. While the EU has historically played a key role in negotiations with Iran, it seems unlikely to participate in the formal talks. When asked by Euronews whether EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas would participate in the talks, a European Commission spokesperson gave no clear confirmation. 'We have always expressed our openness to dialogue and negotiation. When such dialogue occurs, we will inform you,' the spokesperson said, leaving open the possibility of a last-minute invitation. Before the E3-Iran meeting, the European ministers are expected to meet with Kallas at Germany's permanent mission in Geneva however – a move that highlights the EU's continued efforts to coordinate and facilitate diplomacy, even if indirectly. Brussels has long played a central role in the Iran nuclear negotiations, particularly through the High Representative for Foreign Affairs in the broader EU+3 format – which once included other countries such as the United States, Russia and China. Under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the UN-brokered nuclear agreement aimed at lifting sanctions in exchange for Iran's compliance with nuclear obligations, the EU served as a key facilitator and guardian of the agreement's implementation. Under the previous administration of US President Donald Trump, Washington pulled out of the JCPOA. The upcoming talks are expected to revive dialogue in light of the escalating conflict and persuade Iran to provide credible guarantees that its nuclear program remains exclusively civilian in nature. However, the influence of the European parties has waned in recent months. The last E3-Iran meeting was held in January, shortly before Trump assumed office. Subsequent indirect US-Iran talks, brokered by Oman, failed to yield results, with the sixth planned round cancelled after the Israeli military strikes on Iran. Although not directly involved this time, the EU has played a behind-the-scenes role as a diplomatic facilitator, attempting to bridge divides among European countries and even between Europe and the US. The EU's presence in the talks has visibly diminished since the tenure of former High Representative Federica Mogherini, who was a prominent architect and staunch defender of the 2015 deal. Despite its limited visibility, the EU hopes that its coordinating efforts can still shape the outcome of the talks or at least keep the door open for renewed multilateral diplomacy on Iran's nuclear file.
Saudi Gazette
5 hours ago
- Politics
- Saudi Gazette
Europe partly to blame for Iran-Israel conflict, Iran's UN ambassador says
GENEVA — Iran's ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva has said diplomacy still have a chance if Israel stops its strikes but warned that Iran would target the United States if it chooses to come into the conflict. "We believe that the minimum thing Europeans can do is to very explicitly condemn Israel and stop their support for Israel," Ali Bahraini said in an interview for Euronews. Bahraini said Europe's reluctance to condemn Israel's aggression and its inability to keep the nuclear deal (JCPOA) afloat have all contributed to the current intensifying hostilities between Iran and Israel, now in their seventh day. "The impunity which has been given to Israel is something which encourages that entity to continue committing new crimes. And this impunity is because of inaction by Europeans. By the United States and the Security Council," Bahraini explained. "We request and we ask Europe to push Israel to stop the aggression. Europe should play its responsibility to put an end to the impunity that Israel is enjoying. Europe should stop helping or assisting Israel financially, militarily, or by intelligence. And Europe should play a strong role in explaining for the United States and for Israel that Iranian nuclear technology is not something which they can destroy." Bahraini said that what he called Europe's "failures" would be presented to the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom – known collectively as the E3 – at talks in Geneva on are meeting in Switzerland to discuss Iran's nuclear program, which is at the heart of the current conflict with was previously subject to an international nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which saw the country receive sanctions relief in exchange for strict limits on its nuclear his first term in office, President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the pact in 2018, slamming it as "the worst deal ever negotiated" and slapping new sanctions on then, the other signatories to the deal have scrambled to keep Iran in compliance, but Tehran considers the deal void and has continued with uranium enrichment, which at current levels sits at 60%.That's still technically below the weapons-grade levels of 90%, but still far above the 3.67% permitted under the maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful and purely for civilian purposes. Israel, on the other hand, says Tehran is working towards the construction of a nuclear weapon, which could be used against told Euronews that there is still a window for diplomacy to reach a new nuclear deal, but first, the fighting with Israel has to stop."For our people and for our country, now the first priority is to stop aggression, to stop attacks," he told Euronews."I personally cannot imagine there would be a strong probability at the moment for a kind of diplomatic idea or initiative because for us it would be inappropriate if we think or talk at the moment about anything rather than stopping the aggressors," Bahraini pointed to the daily exchanges of missile and drone strikes that have taken place since last Friday, the conflict has also led to an escalating war of words, particularly between Trump and some senior figures in asked by reporters on Wednesday whether he intended to bring the US military into the conflict to strike Iran alongside Israel, Trump said, "I may do it, I may not do it. Nobody knows what I'm going to do."While Trump appeared to avoid a direct commitment to military action, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu interpreted his comments as a show of support and, in a television address later on Wednesday evening, thanked Trump for "standing by us".Into that mix came Iran's mission to the United Nations, which said no officials from the country would "grovel at the gates of the White House" to reach a nuclear deal with the United said it was clear to him that "the United States has been complicit to what Israel is doing now."He said Iran would respond very firmly if the United States "crosses the red lines" and said that strikes on the country had not been ruled out."Our military forces are monitoring the situation. It is their domain to decide how to react," he said."What can I tell you for sure is that our military forces have a strong dominance on the situation, they have a very precise assessment and calculation about the movements of the United States. And they know where the United States should be attacked," Bahraini also said that Iran has not requested any international support and is protecting itself funds a string of militant groups around the region, including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen, and while they all have different aims and objectives, often the ideology that binds them is their anti-Israel fighting with Israel broke out last week, there were concerns that Iran might demand these groups step up and fight alongside it, in return for the funding and training they have received from far, that has not happened."At this stage, we are confident that we can defeat Israel independently and we can stop aggression without needing any request of help by anybody," Bahraini explained."I personally believe that Israel is not an entity with which somebody can negotiate. The thing we have to do is to stop aggression, and we have to show Israel that it is not able to cross the red lines against Iran.""Israel is accustomed to committing crimes, and we think that we have to stop it somewhere. We have to tell Israel that there is a red line," he concluded. — Euronews
Hindustan Times
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
What is Fordow nuclear facility? Iran touts that all nuclear material is ‘in a safe place'
The atmosphere in Iran and Israel worsens each day, and now the world is looking at one of the most clandestine and highly secure nuclear installations of the Iranian state, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. Although Israel has struck the facility in recent offensive action against the Iranian nuclear facilities, it is still unclear whether there was any damage to the facility and the extent of danger the facility can still pose. ALSO READ| Israeli PM Netanyahu sparks uproar with his remark on 'personal loss of war': What did he say? Located deep inside a mountain about 30 kilometres northeast of Qom, Fordow was originally a military base run by Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But in 2009, Iran announced publicly that it had taken the facility and changed it to a nuclear facility, only after knowing that Western intelligence agencies already knew about its presence. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have found uranium enriched to nearly weapons-grade levels in Fordow. During an unannounced inspection in early 2023, the IAEA detected uranium particles enriched to 83.7 per cent purity, just short of the 90 per cent needed for a nuclear bomb. 'At the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, we found particles of high enriched uranium with enrichment levels well beyond the enrichment level declared by Iran,' IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said in March 2023, per AL Jazeera. Despite Israel's airstrikes on Fordow last week, Grossi clarified on Monday that 'no damage has been seen at the site of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant or at the Khondab heavy water reactor.' ALSO READ| 'Moral victory for Iran', says scientist as missile hits Israel's main Science institute Recently, the site (Fordow), intended to become a non-nuclear research centre, has been unofficially bestowed again with the task of uranium enrichment, following the U.S withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA). In 2023, the IAEA stated that Iran had now linked centrifuges in a manner that would permit enriched levels to reach 60 per cent purity. Iranian commander Mohsen Rezaei reassured citizens that 'all nuclear material is in a safe place,' per Daily Mail, brushing off concerns about the potential for conflict or sabotage. Many experts believe that even if Israel wanted to fully neutralise Fordow, it likely lacks the firepower to do so from the air. The underground site is designed to withstand heavy bombardment. Only the US has the kind of weapons, or rather the kind of bomb, namely the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which is a 30,000-pound bunker-busting bomb that can possibly bring down the reinforced walls of the place. ALSO READ| Israel Iran conflict: Iran to meet EU leaders for nuclear talks, US still weighing options Former U.S. President Donald Trump said earlier, 'I'm not looking to fight.' 'But if it's a choice between fighting and having a nuclear weapon, you have to do what you have to do. I may do it. I may not do it.'
Irish Examiner
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Donald Trump is 'all in' with Benjamin Netanyahu's illegal war on Iran
The unfolding conflict between Israel and Iran is both far more complex and far simpler to understand than much of the reporting to date suggests. Far from a defensive necessity for Israel against an alleged nuclear threat, this escalation appears to be a calculated gamble born of Benjamin Netanyahu's long-held strategic ambitions and the alarming absence of a coherent strategy from the Trump administration, with Iran's nuclear program serving merely as a convenient — and increasingly threadbare — pretext for regime change in Tehran. For years, the international community, including the United States, painstakingly constructed a robust diplomatic framework to ensure the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an agreement between Iran and the P5+1 nations, established an unprecedentedly stringent surveillance and inspection regime, significantly curtailing Iran's nuclear activities. In return, some of the UN-backed sanctions against Iran were lifted or suspended. An Israeli strike hits an oil storage facility in Tehran on Saturday. The assault on Iran is just the latest episode in an alarming pattern of escalating criminal behaviour on the part of Tel Aviv. File photo: AP/Vahid Salemi In 2018, however, bowing to intense pressure from Benjamin Netanyahu, then-president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the JCPOA. Netanyahu had always been the most vocal critic of the agreement, advocating for military action even as US officials acknowledged that Iran's compliance, as well as a limit to uranium enrichment of just 3%, made the delivery of a nuclear weapon virtually impossible for decades. Notably, Tulsi Gabbard, US director of national intelligence testified in March 2025 that the intelligence community found no evidence of Iran building a nuclear weapon. More definitively, the director general of the IAEA on 18 June 18, 2025, clearly stated "we did not have any proof of a systematic effort [on Iran's part] to move into a nuclear weapon". Thus the "threat" seems, in large part, to be a manufactured crisis. Regime change Israel's surprise attack on Iran occurred just two days before scheduled Iran-US talks that Iran viewed positively and were progressing smoothly (according to officials on both sides). This strongly suggests that these talks were a mere smokescreen, a deceptive cover for an attack that, according to Trump, the US had been aware of for months. While Iran's nuclear programme serves as Israel's public justification for pursuing the war, the true objective appears to be the destabilization of Iran, a clear intention to topple the government and turn the country into a failed state, akin to the tragedies witnessed in Libya and Syria, where central governments can no longer maintain territorial integrity. The echoes of 2003 when the United States and its allies attacked Iraq are eerie: the insistence that Iran is developing alleged 'weapons of mass destruction', disguising the real goal of the operation which is regime change in Tehran. The campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein created utter chaos in Iraq and resulted in the deaths of probably a million Iraqis, the displacement of millions, and 4,800 American and coalition deaths, As was the case in Iraq, it seems abundantly clear that Netanyahu and Trump have no plan for what happens if/after the Iranian regime is defenestrated. This intervention, if successful in toppling the Iranian government, carries the terrifying prospect of a prolonged civil war. Iran's diverse regional groups, including militias from Azerbaijan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, could exploit the power vacuum, leading to a scramble for territory and an even wider regional conflagration. Consequences Furthermore, two other dangerous consequences are likely to emerge. Firstly, Iran may conclude that a nuclear weapon is its only true deterrent against such aggression, leading it to abandon all diplomatic efforts to restrict its nuclear program. Secondly, Iran will almost certainly target US allies and interests in the region. This could involve strikes on oil production and refinery infrastructure in the Persian Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia and could block the Strait of Hormuz. Given that roughly 20-25% of global oil exports pass through the strait daily, this will have significant implications for global energy security. The erratic behaviour of the US president is evident in Trump's fluctuating positions throughout this war — from urgent calls for peace, to presenting a final offer to Iran that never materialized, to urging Tehran residents to evacuate, denying involvement in attacks, threatening to assassinate Iran's supreme leader, and finally demanding 'unconditional surrender'. Rogue state Forget these lurching statements about Iran: there is a good case for arguing that they are performative and that Trump is all in as Netanyahu's partner in crime. Trump's American version of authoritarianism neatly dovetails with Benjamin Netanyahu's model: lawlessness and loutishness define them. Violence is their operational creed. Israel is a rogue state now completely out of control. The assault on Iran is just the latest episode in an alarming pattern of escalating criminal behaviour on the part of Tel Aviv, from the repeated and decades-long flouting of UN resolutions, to the ramped up building of illegal settlements and outrageous settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the murder of large numbers of UN officials and journalists, and cross-border attacks on Lebanon and Syria. Already it is evident that, far from protecting civilians via 'precision strikes' against Iranian regime figures, the casualty list includes at least 250 civilians, including more than 20 children, echoing the approach the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) has taken in Gaza. Gaza has become not just an Israeli concentration camp but a death camp, where Palestinians are corralled, starved and murdered by Israeli forces every day of the week. Leaders of the collective 'West' who piously pontificate about 'never again' stand by and do nothing; many such governments give the impression that they implicitly approve of what Israel is doing. The collective West thus bears enormous responsibility for its complicity in Israel's genocidal violence, and Tel Aviv's repeated infringements of international law. The Trump-Netanyahu escalation points to a disturbing calcification of the international system of states and institutions, and a complete unwillingness on the part of those who designed it, to defend the rules-based international order which emerged after the catastrophes of two world wars in the 20th century. Palestinian Samia al-Atrash holds the corpse of one of her sister's children killed in an Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip in October 2023. The protracted silence of the European Union as Israel carried out the mass slaughter of more than 50,000 Palestinian civilians in Gaza has provided Tel Aviv with confidence that there would be minimal pushback if it went ahead with its large-scale attack on Iran. Photo: Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images An outstanding example of this phenomenon can be seen in the protracted silence of the European Union, as Israel carried out the mass slaughter of more than 50,000 Palestinian civilians in Gaza. This provided Tel Aviv with confidence that there would be minimal pushback if it went ahead with its large-scale attack on Iran. The attack on Iran is a dangerous manifestation of Netanyahu's expansive regional ambitions, supported by a US administration seemingly devoid of a cohesive strategy. The consequences, both for Iran and the wider world, could be devastating, far outweighing any purported security gains for Israel and the United States. Shamsoddin Shariati is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Maynooth University. John O'Brennan is a professor in the Department of Sociology at Maynooth University and Director of the Maynooth Centre for European and Eurasian Studies.
