Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa speaks with Israeli PM, says negotiations with Tehran should ‘include broader issues’; Netanyahu once again invited to visit kingdom when pandemic eases
Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa listens as then-US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Sept. 16, 2019. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Bahrain’s crown prince spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday about the return to nuclear talks with Iran, Bahrain’s state-run news agency reported, as the new US administration tries to revive the tattered 2015 nuclear accord.
Bahraini Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, also the country’s prime minister, stressed to Netanyahu “the importance of the participation of regional countries in any negotiations on the Iranian nuclear file” to support “security and stability in the region,” according to the official Bahrain News Agency.
The statement marks the first response from a Gulf Arab leader to US President Joe Biden’s announcement earlier this month that he was seeking a return to nuclear negotiations with Iran.
Nearly three years ago, former US president Donald Trump abandoned the landmark accord and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran. His withdrawal was welcomed by Gulf nations and Israel, Iran’s foes in the region that are most directly threatened and staunchly opposed the deal.
The sheikhdoms in the Persian Gulf, along with Israel, were excluded from the last nuclear negotiations and remain highly skeptical of Iran’s intentions. They have indicated they would only be open to a deal if it included limits on Iran’s non-nuclear activities, including missile development and support for rebel groups and militias in the Middle East. A main reason Trump gave for withdrawing from the nuclear deal was that it did not address those issues.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left; United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan; and Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa; at the White House, Sept. 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
In Thursday’s call, the Bahraini crown prince urged that any nuclear negotiations with Iran “include broader issues,” without elaborating.
The readout from Israel said the crown prince repeated his invitation for Netanyahu to visit Bahrain once the pandemic allows and that the kingdom is interested in investing jointly with other countries in a vaccine production factory planned to be located in Israel.
Following the United Arab Emirates, the island kingdom of Bahrain normalized relations with Israel last fall, an agreement forged out of mutual enmity for Iran.
On Wednesday Axios reported that Jerusalem and Washington will launch strategic discussions on Iran in the coming days that will focus on the two nations’ intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program.
The sides are planning quiet dialogue in a bid to avoid a public fight over US policy on Iran under Biden’s new administration, the news site said.
It said the US and Israel are set to reconvene the working group on Iran, first set up under the Obama administration, which will be led by the national security advisers of both nations — Israel’s Meir Ben-Shabbat and Washington’s Jake Sullivan.
FM Ashkenazi says Tehran ‘crushing the last vestiges of oversight by the IAEA’; Defense Minister Gantz says IDF ‘constantly preparing’ for possibility of military action
n this file photo released Nov. 4, 2019 by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the organization, speaks with media while visiting the Natanz enrichment facility, in central Iran. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP, File)
With Iran moving to limit some UN inspections of its nuclear facilities, Israel on Wednesday said the Islamic Republic’s actions threaten regional stability and require an immediate international response.
“Iran is crushing the last vestiges of oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency and continues to challenge and threaten regional stability,” Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said in a statement.
“Iran’s extreme steps necessitate an immediate international response,” he said. “The Iranian policy is a statement of intentions as to its desire to continue to clandestinely develop nuclear capabilities.”
“Israel sees this step as a threat and it must not go by without response. We will never allow Iran to control the capability to acquire a nuclear weapon.”
Iran on Tuesday began limiting the International Atomic Energy Agency’s access to sites and other information in response to Washington’s refusal to lift sanctions imposed by former president Donald Trump after he pulled the US from the 2015 nuclear deal Iran signed with world powers.
Tehran has steadily stepped away from the deal since Trump withdrew in 2018 and reimposed sanctions. It has enriched uranium to 20 percent, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels.Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, in Jerusalem on June 10, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Nonetheless, the Biden administration and European countries are seeking to keep the nuclear deal alive. The US is demanding that Iran return to compliance before any sanctions are lifted, while Tehran has conditioned its cooperation on eased sanctions.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz addressed the mounting crisis with Iran in a Wednesday speech at a military ceremony.
“We know that Iran is advancing rapidly in several areas in its nuclear program and accumulating many tools. It is enriching uranium and installing hundreds of advanced centrifuges in secret facilities, and sabotaging efforts by the IAEA to monitor it,” Gantz said.
“Much of Iran’s efforts are irreversible because it is gaining much knowledge and experience. The US, Europe and Middle Eastern countries are well aware of Iran’s steps, which could lead to a wider arms race,” Gantz said.
“Iran is a problem for the region and the whole world, but it is also a great threat to the State of Israel. We must therefore work in coordination with world powers to ensure that if an agreement is signed with Iran, it will halt its nuclear program and bring a stop to its activities in Syria,” Gantz said. “The IDF is constantly preparing for the possibility that it will need to activate operational plans.”Defense Minister Benny Gantz in Jerusalem, January 4, 2021. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
The IAEA said Tuesday that it was “deeply concerned” by the possible presence of nuclear material at an undeclared site in Iran that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared was a “secret atomic warehouse.” The site in question is in the Turquzabad district of Tehran, previously identified by Israel as an alleged site of secret atomic activity.
Inspectors from the IAEA visited the site several times after Netanyahu identified it in a 2018 address to the UN General Assembly, took soil samples, and later definitively concluded that there were “traces of radioactive material” there, Channel 13 news reported in 2019.
Sources told AFP Tuesday that there is no indication the site has been used for processing uranium, but that it could have been used for storing it as late as the end of 2018.
In a separate report also issued on Tuesday, the IAEA said that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is now more than 14 times the limit set down in its 2015 deal with world powers.
The report said that, as of February 16, Iran’s total enriched uranium stockpile was 2,967.8 kilograms. The limit in the 2015 deal was set at 300 kilos (660 pounds) of enriched uranium in a particular compound form, which is the equivalent of 202.8 kilos of uranium in non-compound form.
Netanyahu on Tuesday vowed Israel would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, regardless of whether a multilateral accord is in place to prevent Tehran from doing so, hours after Iranian state TV reported that the Islamic Republic has officially begun restricting international inspections of its nuclear facilities.
PM issues warning after Tehran begins restricting access to IAEA inspectors, in further breach of nuke deal; top Israeli officials hold policy meeting as US seeks to reenter accord
Prime Minsiter Benjamin Netanyahu gives a speech at a memorial ceremony in Tel Hai on February 23, 2021. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday vowed Israel would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, regardless of whether a multilateral accord is in place to prevent Tehran from doing so.
The comments came hours after Iranian state TV reported that the Islamic Republic has officially begun restricting international inspections of its nuclear facilities.
“On the eve of the Purim holiday, I say to those who seek to harm us — Iran and its proxies in the Middle East: 2,500 years ago, another Persian tyrant tried to destroy the Jewish people and just as he failed then – you too will fail,” Netanyahu said at a memorial ceremony in the northern town of Tel Hai, referencing the Purim story.
Addressing Iranian leaders, Netanyahu said Israel wouldn’t allow “your extremist and aggressive regime” to acquire nuclear arms.
“We did not make the generations-long journey for thousands of years back to the Land of Israel, to allow a delusional regime of the ayatollahs to end the story of the resurrection of the Jewish people,” he said.
“We do not place our trust in any agreement with an extremist regime like yours,” Netanyahu said, in remarks likely to make the Biden administration uneasy as it seeks to reenter the 2015 nuclear deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program, which former president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from in 2018.
In this February 20, 2021, photo, Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi, right, speaks with the spokesman of Iran’s atomic agency Behrouz Kamalvandi upon his arrival at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport, Iran. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP)
The premier added: “We have already seen the nature of agreements with extremist regimes like yours, in the past century and also in this century, with the North Korean government. With an agreement or without an agreement, we will do whatever is necessary so you do not arm yourselves with nuclear weapons.”
On Monday, Netanyahu held the first major intra-ministerial meeting to discuss Israel’s policy vis-a-vis Iran since US President Joe Biden took office.
Among the senior officials who took part in the meeting were Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi, Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and Israel’s Ambassador to the US Gilad Erdan.
Also participating were former national security council chairmen Yaakov Amidror and Yaakov Nagel, who Netanyahu is bringing on as external advisers on the issue, the Walla news site reported. Both of them are considered to have a hawkish stance on Iran more in line with Netanyahu’s.
Amidror was national security adviser while the agreement was being crafted and sparred with his American counterpart at the time, Susan Rice. Nagel, a nuclear expert, also served as an adviser during that period but stayed on longer, leading talks with the Trump administration to institute its “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign.
Outgoing national security adviser Yaakov Amidror with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a farewell ceremony in Amidror’s honor, on November 3, 2013. (Kobi Gideon/GPO/Flash90)
Also expected to serve as an external adviser on the matter is longtime Netanyahu aide and Erdan’s predecessor Ron Dermer, who is set to return to Israel in the coming weeks.
During Monday’s meeting, Kohavi and Cohen emphasized the importance of working to build goodwill with the new US administration by not sparring publicly with Washington over the Iran deal, Walla reported.
“We have not moved from our position against returning to the nuclear deal, but we want to work together with the administration and have a constructive discussion with it, not a confrontation,” a senior official said.
Additionally, Netanyahu plans to delegate talks on Iran to senior staff to prevent any personal tension between him and Biden, according to Reuters.
“The intent is to work everything out at that level, and to keep that communication channel open,” a senior official told Reuters. “Obviously this has benefits where there is a risk of a ‘cold shoulder’ at chief-executive level.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) sits with former interim Israeli National Security Adviser Yaakov Nagel (R) at the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on September 18, 2016. (Marc Israel Sellem/Flash90)
Jerusalem is hoping to keep disputes with the new administration “under the radar” for the time being, Army Radio reported.
Also Tuesday, the Kan public broadcaster reported that senior Israeli and Saudi officials have recently held several phone calls to discuss the Biden administration’s plans to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal.
During the conversations, the Saudis also expressed concern over the new US administration and lamented its focus on human rights violations in the kingdom, the report said. Israel and Saudi Arabia do not have diplomatic relative but have maintained clandestine ties. Netanyahu visited Saudi Arabia in November for the first known meeting between Israeli and Saudi leaders.
Sources say no indication Tehran facility was used for processing uranium, but may have been used for storing it as late as 2018, around when Netanyahu revealed site to UN
Illustrative: Iran’s alleged atomic warehouse in Turquzabad, Tehran. (YouTube screenshot)
The UN’s atomic watchdog said Tuesday that it was “deeply concerned” by the possible presence of nuclear material at an undeclared site in Iran that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared was a “secret atomic warehouse.”
“The agency is deeply concerned that undeclared nuclear material may have been present at this undeclared location and that such nuclear material remains unreported by Iran under its safeguards agreement,” a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency seen by AFP said.
“After 18 months, Iran has not provided the necessary, full and technically credible explanation for the presence of the nuclear material particles,” the report said.
The site in question is in the Turquzabad district of Tehran, previously identified by Israel as an alleged site of secret atomic activity.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited the site several times after Netanyahu identified it in a 2018 address to the UN General Assembly, took soil samples, and later definitively concluded that there were “traces of radioactive material” there, Channel 13 news reported in 2019.
Sources told AFP Tuesday that there is no indication the site has been used for processing uranium, but that it could have been used for storing it as late as the end of 2018.
An image from a placard displayed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly showing a suspected “secret atomic warehouse” in the Turquzabad district of Tehran containing up to 300 tons of nuclear material. (GPO)
In a separate report also issued on Tuesday, the IAEA said that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is now more than 14 times over the limit set down in its 2015 deal with world powers.
The report said that, as of February 16, Iran’s total enriched uranium stockpile was 2,967.8 kilograms.
The limit in the 2015 deal was set at 300 kilos (660 pounds) of enriched uranium in a particular compound form, which is the equivalent of 202.8 kilos of uranium in non-compound form.
The latest IAEA reports came on the day that Iran began to restrict some site inspections by the IAEA in a further violation of the nuclear deal, which Tehran has steadily stepped away from since president Donald Trump withdrew the US from the agreement in 2018 and reimposed sanctions.
Tehran appears to be jockeying for position ahead of nuke deal talks by blackballing inspectors and threatening to increase enrichment, but the posturing carries dangerous risks
Iranians drive past missiles on motorcycles during a rally marking the 42nd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, at Azadi (Freedom) Square in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, February 10, 2021. (AP/Ebrahim Noroozi)
With each step Iran takes to advance its nuclear program, a path out of the dangerous quagmire becomes even more murky.
On Tuesday, Tehran officially suspended its implementation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Additional Protocol, which gave nuclear inspectors increased access to Iran’s nuclear program, including the ability to carry out snap inspections at undeclared sites.
“As of midnight tonight, we will not have… commitments beyond safeguards. Necessary orders have been issued to the nuclear facilities,” said Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s envoy to international organizations in Vienna.
A day earlier Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that Tehran could enrich uranium to 60% purity if it so desired. US State Department spokesman Ned Price said the comment “sounds like a threat” and referred to it as “posturing.”
Analysts believe both the move to limit inspections and the enrichment threat are aimed at bolstering Iran’s negotiating position as it and US President Joe Biden’s administration maneuver ahead of expected talks aimed at bringing Washington back into the 2015 nuclear deal. But even if intended as bargaining chips, they carry the risk of moving Iran significantly closer to nuclear weapons capabilities.
“Biden is paying a game of chicken over who will reverse course first,” said Joab Rosenberg, former deputy head analyst in the Israel Defense Force’s Military Intelligence Directorate. “There is an extremely unstable situation here, and a vector of deterioration and Iranian progress toward a bomb.”
The 2015 nuclear deal limits the Islamic Republic to 3.67% enrichment, a threshold it long ago passed as part of a series of escalating violations of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between Iran and six world powers, better known as the Iran nuclear deal.
Uranium enriched to 60% is short of what Iran needs to make a nuclear weapon, but it would show that Tehran is going beyond the 20% to which it began enriching in January.Illustrative: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visits the Bushehr nuclear power plant just outside of Bushehr, Iran, Jan. 13, 2015. (AP Photo/Iranian Presidency Office, Mohammad Berno, File)
Levels above 20% are considered highly enriched uranium, or HEU, with few non-military uses. The jump from 20% to 90% enrichment, the level needed for most weapons-grade applications, is fairly simple, and any move to begin enriching above 20% is liable to raise major alarm bells.
In 2013, Iran’s parliament pushed for a bill to enrich to 60%, which it said was allowed for nuclear-powered submarines. At the time it claimed it was developing such naval vessels, but today is not known to have any in its fleet, raising suspicions that the plans had been a feint.
While Iran’s nuclear program progresses, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s ability to keep an eye on Tehran’s nuclear program is moving in the other direction. On Sunday, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told reporters after an emergency trip to Tehran that Iran’s government would begin offering “less access” to UN weapons inspectors — involving unspecified changes to the type of activity the watchdog can carry out.
“It is totally clear that from Tuesday, the oversight of Iran will be damaged,” said Rosenberg.In this Feb. 3, 2007 file photo, a technician works at the Uranium Conversion Facility just outside the city of Isfahan, Iran. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
The move to restrict inspectors was in line with a law passed by Iran’s parliament in December requiring the government to cease implementation of the Additional Protocol on Tuesday.
“This law exists, this law is going to be applied, which means that the Additional Protocol, much to my regret, is going to be suspended,” Grossi said, referring to a confidential inspections agreement between Tehran and the IAEA reached as part of the nuclear deal.
Tehran has been gradually suspending its compliance with most of the limits set by the agreement in response to Washington’s abandonment of the nuclear deal, which provided sanctions relief in exchange for enrichment restrictions, and the failure of other parties to the deal to make up for the reimposed US penalties.
In July 2019, Iran announced it had exceeded the 300 kilogram limit of its 3.67% low-enriched uranium stockpile. A week later it began enriching uranium to 4.5% at the Natanz plant.
In September of that year, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that “all of the commitments for research and development under the JCPOA will be completely removed by Friday.” The IAEA verified in November that Iran’s heavy water stockpile had exceeded the JCPOA’s 130 metric ton limit.
On January 5, 2020, Iran announced its fifth planned violation, forgoing any limits on the number of centrifuges it operates.
According to a report Friday, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors last summer found uranium particles at two Iranian nuclear sites to which Iran tried to block access.Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi, center left, speaks with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, center, before a meeting in Tehran, Iran, August 25, 2020. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Iranian authorities had stonewalled the inspectors from reaching the sites for seven months before the inspection, and Iranian officials have failed to explain the presence of the uranium, the Reuters news agency reported, citing diplomats familiar with the UN agency’s work.
The inspections took place in August and September of 2020, the report said. The IAEA keeps its findings secret and only shared the details of the find with a few countries.
IAEA chief Grossi tried to put Monday’s agreement on inspections in a positive light, stressing that monitoring would continue in a “satisfactory” manner, pointing to a three-month “technical understanding” reached to ensure some type of inspections would continue.IAEA Director Rafael Mariano Grossi speaks to the media after returning from Iran, at Vienna International Airport, Sunday, Feb. 21, 2021. (AP/Ronald Zak)
“My hope, the hope of the IAEA, has been to stabilize a situation that was very unstable. And I think this technical understanding does it, so that other political consultations at other levels can take place,” Grossi told reporters.
But the IAEA has refused to detail what the deal allows and critics fear that it will still give Iran more leeway to make progress in its nuclear program while dictating what kind of access international inspectors will have.
“Based on Grossi’s evasiveness, it doesn’t seem like he achieved much in this agreement,” said Rosenberg.File: Fighters with Iran-backed militias in Iraq, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, wave Iraqi flags while mourners and family members prepare to bury the body of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a deputy commander of the militias who was killed in a US airstrike in Iraq, during his funeral procession in Najaf, Iraq, January 8, 2020. (Anmar Khalil/AP)
He noted the possibility that Iran actually made more significant concessions but that Grossi agreed not to go into detail so as not to arouse criticism of the government from Iran’s parliament, which nonetheless termed the agreement “illegal.”
Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, assailed the lack of demands for clarity from the White House.
“The US should not accept that the terms of this agreement are secret,” he said.
While the administration of former US president Donald Trump had pursued a “maximum pressure” policy against Iran, Biden has signaled a more conciliatory approach, albeit while leaving the reimposed sanctions in place. On Friday, Biden said the US was “prepared to reengage in negotiations with the P5+1 on Iran’s nuclear program.”
Goldberg said the Iranians had been testing their boundaries by violating the nuclear deal, and were now seeing how far they could push the Biden administration. He noted an attack by Iranian-backed militias on Erbil in northern Iraq, in which a foreign contractor was killed and an American service member was injured, which carried “no consequences for Iran.”
“Next they will test existing sanctions and whether they will be enforced,” Goldberg predicted. “Unenforced sanctions are the same as lifting sanctions.”
Iran’s Khamenei says ‘no one can stop Tehran’ from getting a nuclear weapon
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meets with members of the Iranian Assembly of Experts in Tehran, Feb. 21, 2021. (AFP)
Reuters
Published: 22 February ,2021: 11:17 AM GSTUpdated: 22 February ,2021: 09:24 PM GST
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that Tehran may enrich uranium up to 60 percent purity if the country needed it, state TV reported, adding that Tehran will never yield to the US pressure over the country’s nuclear work.
“Iran’s uranium enrichment level will not be limited to 20 percent. We will increase it to whatever level the country needs … We may increase it to 60 percent,” state quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying.
He said Tehran had never sought a nuclear weapon but if it wanted to, “no one could stop Tehran from acquiring it.”
“Americans and the European parties to the deal have used unjust language against Iran…Iran will not yield to pressure. Our stance will not change,” Khamenei said.
US President Joe Biden’s administration said last week it was ready to talk to Iran about both nations returning to the accord abandoned by Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday Washington would aim to bolster and extend the 2015 pact, which aimed to limit Iran’s enrichment potential – a possible pathway to atomic bombs – in exchange for a lifting of most sanctions.
Iran and the United States have been at odds over who should take the first step to revive the accord. Iran insists the United States must first rescind US sanctions while Washington says Tehran must first return to full compliance.
The trip, following similar delegations of Greek and Cypriot leaders, is intended to show that the regional allies are united and coordinated, both against friends and foes
Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi meets Egyptian Petroleum Minister Tarek El-Molla meet in Jerusalem, February 21, 2021 (photo credit: MFA)
Although the visit of Egypt’s Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister to Israel on Sunday had the trappings of a routine discussion about energy cooperation by regional partners, it also sent a message to rivals and to the United States.
And El-Molla is no minor player. “El-Molla is very close to Sisi,” pointed out Gabriel Mitchell of the Mitvim Institute, an Israel-based think tank. “He is arguably one of the most visible Egyptian ministers outside the presidency.”
There is certainly no shortage of weighty energy issues for El-Molla to discuss with Israel. Israel and Egypt agreed Sunday to link up Israel’s Leviathan natural gas field with Egyptian liquid natural gas facilities through an underwater pipeline, from which it can be exported to European markets.
What’s more, a UAE-Israel plan to pump oil from Eilat on the Red Sea to Ashkelon on the Mediterranean concerns Egypt, but Cairo has largely refrained from publicly criticizing the project. A deal to provide Israeli natural gas to Gaza is nearing approval, and anything that happens in the coastal enclave could have a direct impact on Egyptian security.
And analysts say that one of the key purposes of the meetings — beyond the energy discussions — was to send a message to Turkey, and its president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference, in Ankara, Turkey, October 26, 2020. (Turkish Presidency via AP, Pool)
For the better part of a decade, Turkey has been engaged in a bitter rivalry with Egypt that began when Erdogan backed the Muslim Brotherhood after the group was ousted from power in Cairo
In the Mediterranean, Egypt has aligned itself with Greece and Cyprus, which accuse Turkey of illegally drilling for natural gas in their exclusive economic zones. Together with Israel, the countries formed the EastMed Gas Forum, headquartered in Cairo, and have conducted joint military exercises.
“A meeting between Israel and Egypt, even if it isn’t the primary purpose of the visit, does send a message to Turkey, especially in the context of the other meetings that are taking place this month,” said Mitchell.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited Israel on February 8, and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades met with Netanyahu on February 14.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosts Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Jerusalem on February 8, 2021 (Haim Zach / GPO)
“There s a clear message of unity, that these partners are working together, that they have their diplomatic ducks in a row, they have their energy ducks in a row.”
The East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF), which comprises Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, and the Palestinian Authority, was formally launched in September. The forum intends to cooperate on the establishment of a natural gas pipeline connecting Israel, Greece and Cyprus to Italy and on to Europe. The eventual aim is to supply the continent with ten percent of its gas.
Israel joined the EMGF last September in a development formally establishing the brainchild of Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz and el-Molla as a regional intergovernmental organization, based in Cairo.
The visit was also meant to send a message to the Biden Administration.
Egypt anticipates increased pressure from the US government over its human rights record.
“We won’t tolerate assaults or threats by foreign governments against American citizens or their family members,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said last week after President Abdel Fattah el Sisi’s government arrested the family of a political activist who is also a US citizen.
As a presidential candidate, Biden tweeted “No more blank checks for Trump’s ‘favorite dictator.
“I have no doubt that the Egyptians have worries about the Biden Administration,” said Eran Lerman, vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and past deputy director of Israel’s National Security Council.
“The Egyptians understand well how important expressions of normalization like this are for Israel,” said Moshe Albo, a modern Middle East historian and researcher at the Dado Center for Interdisciplinary Military Studies. “Therefore the hidden message is that Egypt is working with Israel, and expects Israel to help it with the US; and a message for the US, who will see Egypt cooperating with Israel.”Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (C), his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiadis pose in Athens on January 2, 2020, ahead of the signing of an agreement for the EastMed pipeline project designed to ship gas from the eastern Mediterranean to Europe. (ARIS MESSINIS / AFP)
“All the eastern Mediterranean is arranging itself so that Biden hears a unified position from us,” argued Lerman.
Lerman sees the visits by the Greek and Cypriot leaders as part of the regional coordination process directed partially at Biden. “They weren’t here just to talk about tourism,” he said.
The visit, during which el-Molla visited Palestinian officials in Ramallah, also allowed Egypt to present itself as an invaluable mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, as it has sought to do since Biden’s electoral victory. In December, Sisi said that Cairo was working to advance the two-state solution. A week before Biden took office, Egypt hosted the Jordanian, French, and German foreign ministers to discuss reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
The more Egypt can present itself as a source of stability and cooperation in the region, the logic goes, the less pressure it will face from the US over its human rights record.A crane vessel makes its way to Israel to help set up the Leviathan natural gas platform. (Noble Energy)
In their comments, Israeli leaders sought to emphasize Egypt’s positive influence in the Middle East. “Egypt plays a vital role in the region promoting security, stability, and peace,” said Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi.
He was also sure to play up the appearance of increasing normalization with Egypt. “Egypt was the first country to sign a peace agreement with Israel,” said Ashkenazi, “and we hope that the paradigm shift of the Abraham Accords and all the normalization, we will be able together to expand the peace circle around the region.”
Mitchell believes that relations between Israel and Egypt are noticeably warmer than they have been in the past. “Cooperation has never been so diverse, and never been so meaningful in the entire history of bilateral relations,” he argued.
“There is a trend of normalization,” Lerman agreed. “I’ll remind you that the Egyptians gave their support for the Abraham Accords.”
Albo is unconvinced that the Egyptians are trying to show that they intend to pursue noticeably warmer relations with Israel. “Egypt is presenting the visit internally as one that advances Egypt’s interests, one of its commitments as part of Egypt’s vision for the EastMed, in which el-Molla is meeting both the Palestinian and Israeli energy ministers.”
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi addresses media after his arrival at Vienna International Airport on February 21, 2021. (ALEX HALADA / AFP)
The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said that Iran will begin offering its inspectors “less access,” but will still allow the agency to monitor its atomic program.
Rafael Grossi made the comments on arrival in Vienna late Sunday night after holding talks with officials in Tehran. He was careful to say that there still would be the same number of inspectors, but there would be “things we lose.”
“What we agreed is something that is viable — it is useful to bridge this gap that we are having now, it salvages the situation now,” Grossi told reporters.
“There is less access, let’s face it. But still, we were able to retain the necessary degree of monitoring and verification work,” he said.
Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament passed a law in December demanding the country suspend some inspections if the US failed to lift sanctions.
The law is due to go into effect on Tuesday.
“This law exists, this law is going to be applied, which means that the Additional Protocol, much to my regret, is going to be suspended,” Grossi said, referring to a confidential inspections agreement between Tehran and the IAEA reached as part of the nuclear deal.
Grossi did not give details of precisely which activities the IAEA would no longer be able to do, but confirmed that the number of inspectors in Iran would not be reduced and that snap inspection could continue under the temporary arrangement.
In a joint statement, the IAEA and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said that “a temporary bilateral technical understanding” had been reached “whereby the IAEA will continue with its necessary verification and monitoring activities for up to three months.”
The two sides further agreed to keep the understanding under regular review to “ensure it continues to achieve its purposes.”Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif listens to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during talks in Moscow, Russia, January 26, 2021. (Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service via AP)
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who under President Hassan Rouhani helped reach the nuclear deal, said the cameras of the International Atomic Energy Agency would be shut off despite Grossi’s visit.
“This is not a deadline for the world. This is not an ultimatum,” Zarif told the government-run, English-language broadcaster Press TV in an interview aired before he met Grossi Sunday. “This is an internal domestic issue between the parliament and the government.”
“We have a democracy. We are supposed to implement the laws of the country. And the parliament adopted legislation — whether we like it or not.”
Zarif’s comments marked the highest-level acknowledgement yet of what Iran planned to do when it stopped following the so-called “Additional Protocol.”
Under the protocol with Iran, the IAEA “collects and analyzes hundreds of thousands of images captured daily by its sophisticated surveillance cameras,” the agency said in 2017. The agency also said then that it had placed “2,000 tamper-proof seals on nuclear material and equipment.”
In his interview, Zarif said authorities would be “required by law not to provide the tapes of those cameras.” It wasn’t immediately clear if that also meant the cameras would be turned off entirely as Zarif called that a “technical decision, that’s not a political decision.”
“The IAEA certainly will not get footage from those cameras,” Zarif said.
Grossi made his trip to Tehran as Iran has been trying to pressure Europe and the new Biden administration into returning to the 2015 nuclear deal, which former US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from in 2018, before imposing punishing sanctions on Iran that ravaged its economy.
Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament months ago demanded that, if the US does not lift sanctions by this Sunday, Iran will suspend some IAEA inspections from Tuesday.
But Iran has stressed it will not cease working with the IAEA or expel its inspectors.
Grossi met earlier Sunday with Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s civilian nuclear program. Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi, later tweeted that “Iran and the IAEA held fruitful discussions based on mutual respect, the result of which will be released this evening.”
Uranium particles found
According to a report Friday, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors last summer found uranium particles at two Iranian nuclear sites that Iran tried to block access to.
Iranian authorities had stonewalled the inspectors from reaching the sites for seven months before the inspection, and Iranian officials have failed to explain the presence of the uranium, the Reuters news agency reported, citing diplomats familiar with the UN agency’s wor.
The inspections took place in August and September of 2020, the report said. The IAEA keeps its findings secret and only shared the details of the find with a few countries.
The Reuters report did not identify the sites. Earlier reports said one of the sites was in Abadeh, south of Isfahan — a location that in September 2019 was flagged by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the site of an alleged secret nuclear facility. Iran denies that it seeks nuclear weapons; Netanyahu is adamant that the regime is fooling the world, and has said that a trove of nuclear documents concerning its rogue program, smuggled out of Tehran by the Mossad two years, proves Iran’s duplicity.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealing what he says is a nuclear weapons development site in Abadeh, Iran, at the Prime Ministers Office, on September 9, 2019. (Screenshot: YouTube)
Walking away
Already, Iran has slowly walked away from all the nuclear deal’s limitations on its stockpile of uranium and has begun enriching up 20%, a technical step away from weapons-grade levels.
It also has begun spinning advanced centrifuges barred by the deal, which saw Iran limit its program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.This photo released November 5, 2019, by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, shows centrifuge machines in the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP, File)
An escalating series of incidents since Trump’s withdrawal has threatened the wider Mideast. Over a year ago, a US drone strike killed a top Iranian general, causing Tehran to later launch ballistic missiles that wounded dozens of American troops in Iraq.
A mysterious explosion also struck Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, which Iran has described as sabotage. In November, Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who founded the country’s military nuclear program some two decades earlier, was killed in an attack Tehran blames on Israel.
Zarif brought up the attacks in his interview with state TV, saying the IAEA must keep some of its information confidential for safety reasons.
“Some of them may have security ramifications for Iran, whose peaceful nuclear sites have been attacked,” Zarif said. “For a country whose nuclear scientists have been murdered in terrorist operations in the past — and now recently with Mr. Fakhrizadeh — confidentiality is essential.”
Mike Pompeo ripped the Biden administration for wanting to restart nuclear talks with Iran.Saul Loeb/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted the Biden administration’s willingness to restart nuclear talks with Iran, fearing they could lead to sanctions relief and concessions — but little substantive change in the country’s nuclear policy.
“The ayatollah understands only strength. I led a response to the Iranian threat that protected the American people from its terror and supported the Jewish state of Israel,” Pompeo told the Washington Free Beacon on Thursday. “Adopting the European Union model of accommodation will guarantee Iran a path to a nuclear arsenal.”
Pompeo’s remarks came the same day the State Department said it would welcome an invitation to restore diplomacy with Iran.
In 2018, the Trump administration pulled out of the deal three years after it was brokered by the Obama administration with Britain, France, Germany Russia, China and the European Union. The accord reduced sanctions against Iran in exchange for the country reducing its stockpile of enriched uranium needed to fuel nuclear weapons.
Since the US’s withdrawal, Iran has admitted it’s breached the 2015 deal by using advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges in an underground plant.
Pompeo credited the Trump administration’s steadfastness, saying that European nations “wanted to appease the Iranian theocracy for my entire time as secretary of state.”
“We refused,” he said.
Earlier this week, Pompeo said America needs to show strength when it comes to dealing with Iran.
“When the Iranians sense weakness, they’ll attack,” Pompeo said on “Fox News @ Night.” “What we did is that when they came after an American, we made this very clear: Whether they attacked an American through a proxy force in Iraq, whether they attacked an American through Hezbollah in Syria, wherever it was, wherever Iran was responsible, we were going to hold the Iranians accountable. That’s the kind of strength that built the deterrence model that we had with respect to Iran. I hope that this current administration won’t give up on that.”
View of the nuclear reactor in Dimona, southern Israel, in 2016. (Moshe Shai/Flash90)
Israel’s top-secret nuclear research facility near the southern city of Dimona is undergoing a major expansion, according to a British report.
The UK’s Guardian newspaper reported the development on Thursday, saying the construction work is visible in satellite imagery published by an independent expert group.
The section of the complex under construction is several hundred meters (yards) from the complex’s reactor and reprocessing plant, and the purpose of the construction is not known, the report said.
A researcher with the International Panel on Fissile Material, which first noticed the construction in the satellite images, told The Guardian that the construction appeared to have started in early 2019 or late 2018.
Israel’s Dimona nuclear research facility is officially called the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center.
To this day, Israel has never acknowledged that it has a nuclear arsenal, instead maintaining a policy of “nuclear ambiguity” while vowing that it will not be the first to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, in Jerusalem on June 10, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Defense Minister Benny Gantz in Jerusalem, January 4, 2021. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
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