IAEA rebukes Iran over 'non-compliance' with nuclear obligations
The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) executive committee adopted a resolution on Thursday in Vienna stating that Tehran has failed to meet its obligations to fully disclose its nuclear activities.
The board found that Iran's failings "constitutes non-compliance with its obligations" and indicated that it was considering sending the matter to the UN Security Council.
This step, initiated by the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom will increase pressure on Tehran, as international tensions over its nuclear programme rise.
There are increasing concerns that Israel could launch a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, and the US has recalled non-essential diplomatic staff in Iraq.
The IAEA resolution was passed after Tehran refused for years to declare its past nuclear activities. IAEA inspectors had found traces of uranium and other suspicious evidence in locations away from the acknowledged facilities.
The intergovernmental organization views the Iranian response to its queries as not credible.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stated recently that he could not guarantee that Iran's nuclear programme served exclusively peaceful ends. The board said this raised questions relevant to the UN Security Council.
The 35 member states on the IAEA board have given Tehran additional time to reconsider its stance, without setting a deadline for a potential referral to the UN Security Council.
Negotiations between the United States and Iran over new restrictions to Tehran's nuclear programme resumed in April.
A sixth round of talks is expected to be held on Sunday in Oman's capital Muscat. Oman is mediating the negotiations.
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USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Israel threatens 'Tehran will burn' after Iranian revenge strikes
Israel threatens 'Tehran will burn' after Iranian revenge strikes Iran and Israel continued trading missiles and airstrikes on June 14, a day after Israel launched a sweeping air offensive against its old enemy. Show Caption Hide Caption Iran counterattacks, firing waves of missiles at Israel Iran launched a missile counterattack on Israel. This comes after Israel's missile attack damaged Iranian nuclear and military sites. Iran launches dozens of missiles, Israel says some intercepted. Dozens reported dead as Tehran apartment block hit. While blaming the U.S. for Israel's attack, Iran has not flatly turned down June 15 talks with the Trump administration in Oman. WASHINGTON − Israel's defense minister warned that "Tehran will burn" if Iran continues retaliatory strikes on the Israeli "homefront," as fears grew of a long, disruptive conflict between the regional arch-enemies. Iran and Israel continued trading missiles and airstrikes on June 14, a day after Israel launched a sweeping air offensive against its old enemy, killing commanders and scientists and bombing nuclear sites in a bid to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear weapon. Iranian state TV reported that around 60 people, including 20 children, had been killed in an attack on a housing complex, with more strikes reported across the country as Israel said it had attacked more than 150 targets. Air raid sirens sent Israelis into shelters as missiles streaked across the sky and interceptors rose to meet them, killing at least three people. An Israeli official said Iran had fired around 200 ballistic missiles in four waves. Despite U.S. help in shooting down incoming missiles, Iranian fire hit residential districts. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Iran had crossed a line. "If Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front, Tehran will burn," he said in a statement, singling out Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. President Donald Trump has lauded Israel's strikes and warned of much worse to come unless Iran quickly accepts the sharp downgrading of its nuclear program the U.S. has demanded in talks that had been due to resume on June 15. But with Israel saying its operation could last weeks, and urging Iranians to rise up against their Islamist clerical rulers, fears have grown of a regional war dragging in outside powers, with global economic and financial repercussions. Iran had vowed to avenge the June 13 Israeli onslaught, which gutted Tehran's nuclear and military leadership and damaged nuclear plants and military bases, killing 78 people − including civilians, according to Iran's U.N. envoy. Tehran warned Israel's allies that their regional military bases would come under fire too if they help shoot down Iranian missiles, Iranian state television reported. Iran's allies falter Iran's own ally, the Yemeni Houthi group, fired missiles at Israel the night of June 13; at least one appeared to go astray, injuring five Palestinians, including three children, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. However, 20 months of war in Gaza and a conflict in Lebanon last year have decimated Tehran's strongest allies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, reducing its ability to project power across the region along with its options for retaliation. Israel launches attack on Iran Israel launched a military operation against Iran after the country failed to stop enriching uranium. 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Video showed teams searching through the rubble of one home. And in the western suburb of Ramat Gan, near Ben Gurion airport, Linda Grinfeld described her apartment being damaged: "We were sitting in the shelter, and then we heard such a boom. It was awful." The Israeli military said it had intercepted surface-to-surface Iranian missiles as well as drones, and that two rockets had been fired from Gaza. With Iran's air defences heavily damaged, Israeli Air Force chief Tomer Bar said "the road to Iran has been paved." In preparation for possible further escalation, reservists were being deployed across Israel. Army Radio reported units had been positioned along the Lebanese and Jordanian borders. In Iran, explosions were heard overnight across the capital, state media reported. State television reported that a 14-story housing complex, Shahid Chamran, had been flattened by a missile. It said 60 people were been killed, though there was no immediate official confirmation. Israel's military did not immediately comment on that report. Iran's U.N. envoy Amir Saeid Iravani said 78 people had been killed in Israel's June 13 strikes and more than 320 wounded, most of them civilians. Iran nuclear sites damaged Israel sees Iran's nuclear programme as a threat to its existence, and said the bombardment was designed to avert the last steps to production of a nuclear weapon - even though U.S. intelligence says it has seen no sign that this is imminent. Israeli U.N. envoy Danny Danon called the strikes "an act of national preservation." Israel said it had killed nine Iranian nuclear scientists, and that the damage to the nuclear facilities at Esfahan and Natanz would take "more than a few weeks" to repair. Tehran insists the program is entirely civilian in line with its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and that it does not seek an atomic bomb. However, it has repeatedly hidden parts of its program from international inspectors, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has reported it's in violation of the NPT. Israel, which is not an NPT signatory and is widely understood to have developed a nuclear bomb, has said it cannot let its main regional foe gain atomic weapons. Iranian talks with the United States to resolve the nuclear dispute have stuttered this year. Tehran implied that it would not attend the round that was scheduled for June 15 in Oman, but without definitively refusing. "The other side (the U.S.) acted in a way that makes dialogue meaningless. You cannot claim to negotiate and at the same time divide work by allowing the Zionist regime (Israel) to target Iran's territory," state media quoted foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei as saying. "It is still unclear what decision we will make on Sunday in this regard." In Rome, Pope Leo appealed "to responsibility and to reason." Contributing: Reuters
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Iran's lies about its nuclear plans finally at an end
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Last night's attack struck all the systems, resources, and personnel who led Iran's drive for a nuclear weapons program: enrichment and storage facilities, missile launch sites, the nuclear scientists driving the research, and the military leaders responsible for implementing it. Israel targeted Iran's principal enrichment facility at Natanz for a second time, as well as the nuclear facilities at Fordow and Isfahan. Multiple floors at the Natanz facility have been destroyed, according to the Israel Defense Forces, including the main hall housing uranium-enriching centrifuges that provide the fuel for a nuclear weapon. Advertisement Israeli jets also struck hard at Iran's surface-to-surface missile array, seen in action on two separate occasions last year when Iran fired hundreds of missiles at Israel's population centers. Initial reports suggest that dozens of Iranian launchers, missile storage facilities, and other military sites have been destroyed. The fatality list among the nuclear program's military and scientific leadership is already devastating. Gone are the Iranian military's commander-in-chief, Gen. Mohammed Bagheri, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Gen. Hossein Salami, and the commander of the IRGC's Air Force, Gen. Amir Hajizadeh, along with several of his senior aides. Advertisement Gone too are nuclear researchers Fereydoun Abbasi, the former head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, and Mohammad Tehranji, a nuclear physicist who was based at the Azad University in Tehran. There can be no serious doubt that the leaders of the Islamic Republic have brought this disaster upon themselves. A mix of conceit and hubris gained from more than two decades of nuclear deception led them to believe that President Donald Trump's ultimatum – 60 days to make a deal or else face military action – wouldn't be followed through. Israel's preemptive strike took place on the 61st day. The Iranian regime has been deeply foolish. Since lending support to the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, the Iranians have lost their client regime in Syria, witnessed the destruction of their Hamas and Hezbollah proxies by the IDF, swallowed the decision of their Houthi allies in Yemen to end attacks on the US Navy and commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and sustained two previous Israeli air strikes that wiped out their air defenses along with several missile factories. Advertisement Even so, as Israeli officials have emphasized again and again over the last 24 hours, this is far from over. Gauging the success of 'Operation Rising Lion' will be a complex task, but by targeting key military and scientific personnel alongside the physical infrastructure, Israel has eliminated key human assets integral to Iran's nuclear program, setting its development back years, not mere months. By deploying its significant imagery, signals collection, and human intelligence capabilities, Israel will be in a position to make an authoritative assessment of the operation over the coming days and weeks. Meanwhile, Israel is sensibly bolstering its home-front defenses and preparing its citizens for the inevitable attempted mass casualty attack. As hated as the Iranian regime is by its own people, there are no signs of imminent collapse. Further, as a member of the 'axis of aggressors,' Tehran can count on its allies in Russia, China, and North Korea to assist it militarily, economically, and diplomatically. Just last week, Iran ordered thousands of tons of ammonium perchlorate, a key ingredient in ballistic missile fuel, from a Chinese company in Hong Kong. The Chinese Foreign Ministry disingenuously claimed it had no knowledge of the transaction. Advertisement At this juncture, Israel and its allies have good reason to feel optimistic. Trump himself deemed the Israeli strikes 'excellent,' but the Trump administration's support needs to go beyond mere tweets and praise. Iran is actively threatening U.S. forces in the Middle East, and cannot be allowed to bolster its threats with nuclear weapons. The United States must quickly furnish Israel with any tools needed to finish the job – first-rate intelligence, offensive and defensive munitions, and THAAD missiles to counter the ballistic missile threat from Iran. And if Iran is foolish enough to strike out at the United States in retaliation for this, then America should respond with B-2 Stealth Bombers and Massive Ordinance Penetrators that would finish up the job on Iran's nuclear enrichment and storage assets. Advertisement Only then will Iran's insidious efforts to weaponize its nuclear program be consigned to the garbage can of history. Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery (retired) is a senior fellow and a senior director at the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Ben Cohen is a senior analyst with FDD and director of FDD's rapid response outreach.
Axios
an hour ago
- Axios
Israeli air force achieved freedom of operation in Tehran's airspace, IDF says
Israel Defense Forces has achieved full freedom of operation in the air space around Iran 's capital Tehran, the IDF announced on Saturday. Why it matters: Other than the military implications of being able to freely hit targets where Iran's main military command and control headquarters are located, it is also a political message that Iran's leadership and government symbols are exposed to Israeli attacks. What they're saying:"We established aerial freedom of operation in western Iran, up to Tehran... Tehran is no longer immune—Iran's capital is now exposed to Israeli strikes," IDF spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said in a press conference. Driving the news: IDF officials said in a briefing with reporters that over the last 36 hours since Israel launched the war against Iran the Israeli air force has eliminated the Iranian air defenses that could threaten Israeli fighter jets on their way to Tehran. On Saturday morning, 70 Israeli fighter jets flew more than 900 miles, spent more than two hours in Tehran's airspace and attacked dozens of target in the Iranian capital, the IDF said. "We struck over forty missile-related targets and advanced air defense systems across Iran, alongside additional command and launch infrastructure," Defrin said. He added that dozens of Israeli "aerial platforms" are operating freely over Tehran. "This is a region where the Air Force is operating for the first time—the deepest we've ever operated within Iran," Defrin noted. Yes, but: IDF officials said in a briefing with reporters that Iran has air defense systems in other parts of the country that it can move to Tehran. State of play: More than 100 Iranians have been killed and more than 400 were wounded in the Israeli strikes so far, according to Iranian state media. Iran has launched on Friday night and on Saturday morning four barrages of ballistic missile towards targets around Israel. The IDF said around 200 missiles were launched with most of them intercepted. At least 10 missiles hit military bases and residential areas in Tel Aviv and the surrounding cities. At least four Israelis have been killed and around 100 wounded in the Iranian counterattack.
