Iran plant starts up advanced centrifuges in nuke deal breach
Tehran, Iran - Iran announced on Saturday it has started up advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges in a breach of its undertakings under a troubled 2015 nuclear deal, days after talks on rescuing it got underway.
President Hassan Rouhani officially inaugurated the cascades of 164 IR-6 centrifuges and 30 IR-5 devices at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant in a ceremony broadcast by state television.
The television aired no images of the cascades but broadcast a link with engineers at the plant who said they had introduced uranium hexafluoride gas to the cascades after receiving the order from Rouhani.
Iran’s latest move to step up uranium enrichment follows an opening round of talks on Tuesday with representatives of the remaining parties to the nuclear deal on bringing the United States back into the deal.
Former president Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018.
The Vienna talks are focused not only on lifting crippling economic sanctions Trump reimposed, but also on bringing Iran back into compliance after it responded by suspending several of its own commitments.
All sides said the talks, in which Washington is not participating directly but has the European Union as intermediary, had got off to a good start.
The IR-5 and IR-6 centrifuges allow uranium to be enriched more quickly and in greater amounts than the Iran’s first generation devices, which are the only ones that the 2015 deal allows it to use.
Rouhani again underlined at the ceremony, which coincided with Iran’s National Nuclear Technology Day, that Tehran’s nuclear programme is solely for ‘peaceful’ purposes.
US asks Iran to be ‘pragmatic’
Reports from Washington on Friday said that the United States offered ‘very serious’ ideas on reviving the Iran nuclear accord but was waiting for Tehran to reciprocate as partner nations voiced optimism following talks in Vienna.
“The United States team put forward a very serious idea and demonstrated a seriousness of purpose on coming back into compliance if Iran comes back into compliance,” a US official told reporters as talks broke for the weekend.
But the official said the United States was waiting for its efforts to be ‘reciprocated’ by Iran.
“We saw some signs of it but certainly not enough. There’s still question marks about whether Iran has the willingness to... take the pragmatic approach that the United States has taken to come back into compliance with its obligations under the deal,” he said.
Biden argues that the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated under former president Barack Obama had been successful, with UN inspectors saying Iran was meeting its promises to scale back nuclear work dramatically.
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed three soldiers for ‘high treason’, the Defence Ministry said.
The soldiers were found guilty of ‘the crime of high treason in cooperation with the enemy’ in a way that threatens the kingdom and its military interests, the ministry said in a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency.
The statement named the three soldiers - Mohammed bin Ahmed, Shaher bin Issa and Hamoud bin Ibrahim - without identifying who they were accused of colluding with.
The announcement comes as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 35 year old heir to the throne, consolidates his grip on power and as a Saudi-led military campaign intensifies in neighbouring Yemen.
Prince Mohammed is already viewed as the country’s de facto ruler, controlling all the major levers of government, from defence to the economy. He holds the title of defence minister, while his younger brother Prince Khalid bin Salman is the deputy.
Over the past three years, the crown prince has mounted a sweeping crackdown on critics and rivals, with the imprisonment of prominent royal family members, business tycoons, clerics and activists.
In March last year, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz al Saud, a brother of King Salman, and the monarch’s nephew Prince Mohammed bin Nayef were detained, sources said, as the crown prince sought to stamp out traces of internal dissent.