Chancellor Merz' praise of Israeli strikes sparks criticism – DW – 06/18/2025
06/18/2025
June 18, 2025
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has praised Israel for attacking Iranian nuclear sites, saying Israel is doing the dirty work for the West. His comments on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada have raised eyebrows at home.
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DW
2 hours ago
- DW
Iran summons German envoy after Merz' pro-Israel comments – DW – 06/18/2025
06/18/2025 June 18, 2025 Iran summons German ambassador over Merz' pro-Israel remarks The Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned on Wednesday the German ambassador to Tehran due to remarks made a day earlier by Chancellor Friedrich Merz,saying that by striking Iran, Israel was "doing the dirty work for us all." "Following the shameful statements made by the German chancellor in support of Tel Aviv's aggression against our country, the country's (Germany's) ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Ministry," Iranian state TV reported. Merz also said on Tuesday that the complete destruction of Iran's nuclear program could be on the agenda if Tehran does not return to negotiations.
DW
3 hours ago
- DW
Fordo — the heart of Iran's nuclear program – DW – 06/18/2025
Israel has said its assault on Iran aims to destroy Tehran's nuclear program. Sites in Natanz, Isfahan and elsewhere have been heavily damaged. Now the bunker at Fordo is in the crosshairs. For days, Israel's military has been bombing Iran, its main target: Iran'snuclear facilities. Israel is convinced Tehran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. Iranian leadership has repeatedly rejected the accusation. At the same time, over the past several decades, Iran has constructed numerous nuclear facilities all across the country. Several facilities are thought to house large underground bunkers where research that exceeds any civilian applications could be conducted in secret. Heavy damage at Natanz and Isfahan Until the attack, the Natanz Nuclear Facility in central Iran had been conducting large-scale uranium enrichment of up to 60% according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Between 3%-5% enrichment is required to run a nuclear power plant, and 90% to build a nuclear bomb. Fear deepens in Tehran as Israel targets Iran's capital To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told the BBC that the above-ground centrifuges needed for such enrichment have been almost entirely destroyed at Natanz. It is unclear whether subterranean portions of the facility were destroyed, but Israeli attacks also caused massive power outages that may have caused significant damage. Grossi said it was possible that "dangerous radiation contamination" had occurred inside the facility but that none had been detected outside. At least four buildings at the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center (INTC) have also sustained damage. One, Isfahan's Uranium Conversion Facility, was engaged in processing so-called yellowcake into uranium oxide then uranium tetrafluoride and uranium hexafluoride, key steps for further uranium enrichment. Secret complex: The Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant Beyond Natanz, Iran has another important enrichment facility, the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant, south of Tehran. Situated on a former military base near the city of Ghom, Iran's leaders secretly installed the Fordo facility in the early 2000s. Israeli attacks are said to have targeted the site, though there have been no reports of serious damage thus far. That may be because a large part of the Fordo complex lies deep underground. To protect the site from possible attacks or sabotage and keep it out of view of IAEA inspectors, Tehran had a system of 60-to-90-meter-deep tunnels (197 and 295 feet) drilled into the mountains. International intelligence services first made the existence of the underground site public in 2009. In 2012, the IAEA announced that scientists at Fordo had begun enriching uranium up to 20% "for medical purposes." It is thought that a total of about 3,000 enrichment centrifuges have been installed at the underground site since then. Although Fordo is a smaller complex than Natanz, it is reportedly capable of producing purer grades of uranium, making it militarily far more significant. Israel says it's close to dismantling Iran's nuclear program To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Was Tehran about to build a nuclear bomb? No outsiders know exactly what goes on at Fordo. Although the IAEA theoretically conducts inspections there, Iran has increasingly limited access for international inspectors and even removed monitoring cameras after the collapse of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), or the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which US President Donald Trump withdrew his country from during his first term. In late May, the IAEA accused Tehran of increasing its production of 60% enriched uranium, saying the country had amassed some 400 kilograms (882 pounds) of the stuff. Weapons-grade enrichment could progress comparatively quickly at this point. In the days leading up to Israel's attack, the Institute for Science and International Security, a US think tank, published a report warning that Iran's known Fordo stockpile would allow the production of 233 kilos of weapons-grade uranium — enough to build several nuclear warheads — in just three week's time. A tough target to hit Its potential uranium-enrichment capabilities make Fordo a clear target for future Israeli attacks. "The entire operation… really has to be completed with the elimination of Fordo," Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter told Fox News. But destroying a facility buried deep beneath a mountain is especially difficult. Military analyst Cedric Leighton told CNN that Iran had engineered an especially hard concrete to protect the complex from air attacks. Israel possesses bunker-busting weaponry but would still require several precise attacks to pierce the facility's protective shell. What if the US joined the fight in the Israel-Iran conflict? To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The only bunker-busting bomb in the West big enough to achieve that task is owned by the US. The precision-guided GBU-57 A/B MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator) weighs some 14 tons and was developed to reach targets located deep underground. But the bomb is too large and too heavy for the Israeli air force to deliver. To do so would require a US B-2 or B-52 bomber. Whether the US will allow itself to be drawn into a direct conflict between Israel and Iran in the name of ending Iran's nuclear program remains an open question. This article was originally published in German and was translated by Jon Shelton.
Int'l Business Times
3 hours ago
- Int'l Business Times
'Terrified': Supporters Fear For Prisoners Trapped In Iran
As Israel presses its aerial attacks on Tehran, concern is growing over the fate of foreign nationals and Iranians seen by rights groups as political prisoners imprisoned in the capital who have no chance of fleeing to safety. Iran is believed to hold around 20 European nationals, many of whose cases have never been published, in what some Western governments describe as a strategy of hostage-taking aimed at extracting concessions from the West. Rights groups also accuse Iran of holding dozens of political prisoners whose sole offence has been to criticise the Islamic republic's clerical leadership. Most are held in Evin prison, a large, heavily fortified complex notorious among activists for rights abuses that is located in a northern district of the Iranian capital. The prisoners have no means to respond to US President Donald Trump's warning that "everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!" For Noemie Kohler, the sister of French national Cecile Kohler, who has been held along with her partner Jacques Paris since May 2022 on espionage charges their families reject, the wait is agonising. "Since May 30, we've had no news, no sign of life from Jacques and Cecile, and the French authorities haven't been able to obtain any information either," Noemie Kohler told AFP, referring to the date of their last consular visit. "We saw that at least two strikes took place about two kilometres from where they are being held (in Evin prison), so it's extremely close. We suspect they must have heard the explosions, but we have no idea how they are doing, we have no idea what level of information they have access to." Their last phone contact was on May 28, when Cecile Kohler's parents spoke to her, she said, describing the mood even then as "desperate", as they "no longer believe that they are going to be released". "We don't know if conditions in the prison have deteriorated in connection with the situation. We're completely in the dark, and we're truly terrified," she said. She called for the couple's "humanitarian exfiltration", warning that "they are in imminent danger of death". French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in May that 20 Europeans -- a higher number than the total of publicised cases -- are held in similar circumstances in Iran, including "teachers, academics, journalists, tourists". He told parliament on Wednesday that France sent messages to the Iranian and Israeli authorities "alerting them to the presence of our two compatriots in Evin prison and to the need, as far as the Iranian authorities are concerned, to release them without delay to ensure their safety". Among other Europeans known to be held in Iran is Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali, who was arrested during a visit in April 2016 and sentenced to death in 2017 on charges of spying for Israel, which his family says are false. The current conflict, which has already seen one man, Esmail Fekri, executed on Monday on charges of spying for Israel, has made Djalali's situation especially precarious. Norway-based group Iran Human Rights has warned the lives of Djalali and eight other men convicted on similar charges are at risk. "The risk of execution of these individuals is serious," said its director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, adding they had all been sentenced after "an unfair, non-transparent process, and based on the orders of security institutions". Tehran residents have fled the city en masse. The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who was serving a prison sentence but was released from Evin last year on medical leave, said she had left Tehran. But Mohammadi's fellow rights activist Reza Khandan, the husband of prize-winning rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, is still jailed in Evin. Khandan, who long campaigned for his wife while she was in jail, was himself arrested in December 2024. "My dad is in prison. Can you tell me, how can my father evacuate Tehran?" their daughter Mehraveh Khandan said in a tearful message on Instagram. The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran urged "all parties to fully comply with international humanitarian law and take immediate steps to safeguard civilians, including those in custody". It published a letter by legal activist Mahvash Seydal, seen as a political prisoner by rights groups, calling on authorities to grant detainees such as herself temporary release "to protect the lives and dignity of political prisoners". There is particular concern over the fate of Ahmadreza Djalali AFP Narges Mohamnmadi was able to leave Tehran AFP
