Latest news with #FrancoisMurphy
The Star
6 hours ago
- The Star
Smoke in cockpit forces Budapest-Lyon flight's emergency landing in Austria
VIENNA (Reuters) - Smoke in the cockpit forced a plane carrying 143 passengers and six crew to the eastern French city of Lyon from Budapest to make an emergency landing in Graz, Austria's second city, Austrian police said on Monday. "No people were injured in the incident. The cause of the smoke is currently unclear," police in the Austrian state of Styria, of which Graz is the capital, said in a statement. The statement did not specify which airline the plane belonged to but the only flight from Budapest on Monday listed on Lyon-Saint Exupery airport's website was EasyJet flight 4400. EasyJet's website said the flight was diverted to Graz and landed there at 3:25 p.m. (1325 GMT). It also listed a "follow-on flight" to Lyon from Graz scheduled for 5 p.m. but estimated to depart at 9:45 p.m. Flight tracking website Flightradar24, which EasyJet features on its website, said the plane that landed in Graz was an Airbus 319. (Reporting by Francois Murphy, editing by Deepa Babington)
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Iran obtaining IAEA documents is 'bad', shows poor cooperation, Grossi says
By Francois Murphy VIENNA (Reuters) -Iran's acquisition of confidential U.N. nuclear watchdog documents is a 'bad' step that goes against the spirit of cooperation that should exist between the agency and Tehran, its chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a confidential report on Iran to member states on May 31 seen by Reuters that it had "conclusive evidence of highly confidential documents belonging to the Agency having been actively collected and analysed by Iran". The report said that "raises serious concerns regarding Iran's spirit of collaboration" and could undermine the IAEA's work in Iran, but Tehran said in a statement to member states last week that the accusation in the report was "slanderous" and had been made "without presenting any substantiated proof or document". The IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors is holding a quarterly meeting this week. The United States, Britain, France and Germany plan to propose a resolution for the board to adopt that would declare Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations over other failings outlined in the report. "Here, unfortunately, and this dates to a few years ago ... we could determine with all clarity that documents that belong to the agency were in the hands of Iranian authorities, which is bad," Grossi told a press conference. "We believe that an action like this is not compatible with the spirit of cooperation." Asked about the nature of the documents and whether they were originally Iranian ones that had been seized by Israel and supplied to the agency, Grossi said: "No. We received documents from member states, and also we have our own assessments on documents, on equipment, etc."
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Any Trump deal with Iran must tackle nuclear watchdog's blind spots
By Francois Murphy and John Irish VIENNA (Reuters) -U.N. inspectors monitoring Iran's Fordow nuclear site confronted a major gap in their knowledge last year as they watched trucks carrying advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges roll into the facility dug into a mountain south of Tehran. While Iran had notified the International Atomic Energy Agency that hundreds of extra IR-6 centrifuges would be installed at Fordow, the inspectors had no idea where the sophisticated machines had come from, an official familiar with the U.N. monitoring work told Reuters on condition of anonymity. The episode encapsulated how the U.N. nuclear watchdog has lost track of some critical elements of Iran's nuclear activities since U.S. President Donald Trump ditched a 2015 deal that imposed strict restrictions and close IAEA supervision. Key blind spots include not knowing how many centrifuges Iran possesses or where the machines and their parts are produced and stored, quarterly IAEA reports show. The agency has also lost the ability to carry out snap inspections at locations not declared by Iran. The U.S. has started new talks with Iran, aiming to impose fresh nuclear restrictions on Tehran. For any deal to succeed, though, those IAEA blind spots will need to be closed, according to more than a dozen people familiar with Iran's atomic activities, including officials, diplomats and analysts. "There are gaps in our knowledge of Iran's nuclear programme that must be addressed in order to have a baseline understanding of its current scale and scope," said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group think-tank. "That may take months to piece together but it's critical if the IAEA and parties to the negotiations are to have confidence in the non-proliferation benefits of an agreement." The IAEA, which answers to 180 member states, declined to comment for this article. The Iranian foreign ministry and Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation didn't respond to queries. Iran has long held that it was entitled to scrap its commitments to enhanced IAEA supervision under the 2015 deal after the U.S. unilaterally withdrew. It rejects Western accusations that it is at least keeping the option of building a nuclear weapon open, saying its aims are purely peaceful. The Islamic Republic has nonetheless made big strides in uranium enrichment in recent years. When the U.S. and world powers struck the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, they sought to limit Tehran's "breakout time" - how long it would need to produce enough fissile material for a single atom bomb - to at least a year by capping the purity to which it could enrich uranium at below 4%. Now that breakout time has all but evaporated. Iran has installed ever more advanced centrifuges and is enriching to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% of weapons grade. According to a confidential report by the IAEA at the weekend, Iran has enough uranium enriched to that level for nine nuclear weapons if refined further, by an agency yardstick. No other country has enriched uranium to such a high level without producing weapons, the watchdog added. Nuclear power plants often use fuel enriched to between 3% and 5%. A European official who follows Iran's nuclear programme told Reuters the enrichment programme was now so advanced that, even if it was shut down entirely, the Iranians could restart and rebuild it in the space of a few months. After five rounds of discussions between Iranian and U.S. negotiators, several obstacles remain. Among them are Iran's rejection of an American demand that it commit to scrapping enrichment and its refusal to ship its existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium abroad. Given the window has closed to restore as long a breakout time as in 2015, any new deal would instead have to bolster IAEA supervision of the nuclear programme, said the official who also requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. Roughly three years ago Iran ordered the removal of all the surveillance and monitoring equipment added by the 2015 deal, including surveillance cameras at the workshops that make centrifuge parts. At that point the IAEA had already not had access to those cameras' footage for more than a year. While the IAEA sees the roughly 20,000 centrifuges installed at Iran's enrichment facilities, it does now know how many more have been produced in recent years and are now elsewhere. A U.S. State Department spokesperson said IAEA monitoring was critical for the international community to understand the full extent of Iran's nuclear programme, though adding it was not in America's interest to "negotiate these issues publicly". IRAN REJECTS US ENRICHMENT DEMAND The 2015, Obama-era deal capped the purity to which Iran could enrich uranium at 3.67%, well below the 20% it had already reached then, and restricted the number and type of centrifuges Iran could use and where. Enrichment was not allowed at Fordow. Iran, meanwhile, agreed to the snap inspections and an expansion of the IAEA's oversight to include areas like centrifuge production and its stock of so-called yellowcake uranium that has not been enriched. IAEA reports showed Iran adhered to limits on key elements of its nuclear programme, including enrichment, until more than a year after Trump abandoned the pact in 2018, during his first term. The U.S. president decried a "horrible one-sided deal" that did not address other issues such as Iran's ballistic missile programme or its role in regional conflicts. His withdrawal prompted Tehran to retaliate, both by eventually pushing far beyond those enrichment and centrifuge limits and by scrapping the extra IAEA supervision put in place after the 2015 deal. Iran is still, however, providing IAEA inspectors with regular access to its facilities as part of longer-standing obligations as a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, under which there is no cap on enrichment levels but nuclear technology must be used for peaceful purposes. U.S. and Iranian negotiators started their new nuclear talks in April, with Trump having threatened military action if no pact is struck. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said in Washington in April that it is important Iran accept "indispensable" restrictions to enable his agency to reassure the world about Iran's intentions, without specifying the curbs. He has also said last week any new deal should provide for "very robust inspection by the IAEA". The IAEA says it cannot currently "provide assurance that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful". COMPLETING THE PUZZLE Diplomats have for years expected that any new deal will task the IAEA with creating a so-called baseline, a complete picture of where all areas of Iran's nuclear programme stand, filling in gaps in the agency's knowledge as much as it can. Establishing a baseline will be particularly challenging since some blind spots have lasted so long they cannot fully be filled in; the IAEA has said in quarterly reports to member states it has lost "continuity of knowledge" and will not be able to restore it on production and inventory of centrifuges, certain centrifuge parts and yellowcake. "Assembling that puzzle will be an essential part of any deal. We know establishing that new baseline will be hard," said Eric Brewer, a former U.S. intelligence analyst now at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a non-governmental organisation focused on security and based in Washington. "It will depend in part on how cooperative Iran is." Even then, there is a significant risk the IAEA would lack a complete picture of Tehran's activities, he added. "Is that uncertainty acceptable to the United States?" Brewer said. "Important question."
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
West plans to push IAEA board to find Iran in breach of duties, diplomats say
By Francois Murphy and John Irish VIENNA (Reuters) -Western powers are preparing to push the U.N. nuclear watchdog's board at its next quarterly meeting to declare Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years, a move bound to enrage Tehran, diplomats said. The step is likely to further complicate talks between the United States and Iran aimed at imposing fresh restrictions on Iran's rapidly advancing nuclear programme. Washington and its European allies Britain, France and Germany, known as the E3, proposed past resolutions adopted by the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation Board of Governors calling on Iran to quickly take steps such as explain uranium traces the IAEA found at undeclared sites. The IAEA is preparing to send member states its quarterly reports on Iran before the next board meeting, which begins on June 9. One of those will be a longer, "comprehensive" account of issues including Iran's cooperation, as demanded by a board resolution in November, and diplomats expect it to be damning. "We expect the comprehensive report to be tough, but there were already no doubts over Iran not keeping its non-proliferation commitments," one European official said. Once that report is issued, the United States will draft a proposed resolution text declaring Iran in breach of its so-called safeguards obligations, three diplomats said. A fourth said the Western powers were preparing a draft resolution without going into specifics. The text will be discussed with countries on the board in coming days before being formally submitted to the board by the four Western powers during the quarterly meeting as has happened with previous resolutions, diplomats said. SECURITY COUNCIL The last time the board took the step of formally declaring Iran in breach of its safeguards obligations was in September 2005 as part of a diplomatic standoff that stemmed from the discovery of clandestine nuclear activities in Iran. The United States and IAEA now believe Iran had a secret, coordinated nuclear weapons programme that it halted in 2003. Iran denies ever having had a weapons programme and says it is only using nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. A separate IAEA board resolution passed in February 2006 referred Iran's non-compliance to the U.N. Security Council, which later imposed sanctions on Iran. The diplomats said it had not yet been determined at what point the Western powers would seek to have the matter referred to the Security Council, and it is unclear what action if any the Security Council would then take against Iran. The most immediate effect of a resolution is likely to be on Tehran's talks with the United States and any further nuclear steps Iran decides to take on the ground. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran would react to a resolution by "expanding nuclear work based on (the content of) the resolution". The board has passed all recent resolutions proposed by the Western powers on Iran, and there is little doubt that this one would go through as well. The only question is how large the majority would be. Russia and China have been the only countries to consistently oppose such resolutions. Iran bristles at resolutions and other criticism of it at the IAEA board, taking steps such as accelerating and expanding its uranium enrichment programme or barring top IAEA inspectors. It is already enriching uranium to up to 60% purity, which can easily be further enriched to the roughly 90% of weapons grade. It has enough material at that level, if enriched further, for six nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. (Writing by Francois Murphy; Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
No sign of preparations to restart Zaporizhzhia, IAEA official says
By Francois Murphy VIENNA (Reuters) -There is no sign Russia is preparing to restart the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, an official from the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Thursday, after Ukraine complained about reports Russia was preparing to connect it to its grid. Zaporizhzhia, which is held by Russia, is Europe's biggest nuclear power plant. Its six reactors are shut down as war rages around it. The International Atomic Energy Agency has called for a ceasefire, after which measures to improve the water and external power supplies needed to cool nuclear fuel could be taken. "Our teams continue to confirm there is no indication at the moment that there will be any active preparations for a restart of the plant now," the IAEA official said on condition of anonymity. A Ukrainian official said on Wednesday his country had protested to the IAEA about reports that Russia is building power lines to connect the Zaporizhzhia plant to its own grid. Yuriy Vitrenko, Ukraine's ambassador to the IAEA, told Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform that Kyiv sees any attempt by Russia to connect the occupied plant to its grid as a gross violation of international law and Ukrainian sovereignty. On Tuesday, the New York Times cited a new Greenpeace report which found that Russia had been building more than 50 miles (80 km) of power lines between the occupied Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Berdyansk. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told Reuters in March it could be possible to restart one of the plant's six reactors within months of a lasting ceasefire that is still proving elusive. That would, however, require increasing the plant's supplies of water and external power. Water has been a concern since the plant's biggest source, the nearby Kakhovka reservoir, was emptied when its dam was blown up in 2023. That led to wells being dug at Zaporizhzhia, which provide enough water to cool nuclear fuel in the reactors while they are shut down but not enough to do so if they are restarted. "The plant lost its main source of cooling water, so the whole system cannot work as it was originally designed," the IAEA official said. "The consumption of water is orders of magnitude higher (when the plant is operating) compared to cold shutdown. We don't see any easy, quick fix for it," they added.
