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IAEA Chief Seeks Tougher Nuclear Checks in Iran, With Limited Leverage
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei visits the Iranian centrifuges in Tehran, Iran, June 11, 2023. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi flew to Iran on Monday hoping to bolster his agency’s oversight of Tehran’s atomic activities after various setbacks, but analysts and diplomats say he has limited leverage and must be wary of empty promises.
Then-US President Donald Trump’s decision in 2018 to ditch a landmark deal between Iran and major powers that exchanged nuclear restrictions for sanctions relief caused that accord to unravel. Iran has since accelerated its uranium enrichment and reduced cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“The level of inspection [in Iran] is not at the level we should have,” Grossi told Sky News last month.
“Given the depth and breadth of the program, we should be having additional monitoring capabilities,” said Grossi, who is due to meet officials including chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian.
Iran is enriching uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the around 90 percent of weapons grade. If that material were enriched further, it would suffice for two nuclear weapons, according to an official IAEA yardstick.
Iran has also limited the IAEA’s ability to do its job properly. It faces an array of problems, from Tehran’s continued failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites to its barring of almost all the IAEA’s top enrichment experts.
When he returned from his last Iran trip in March 2023, Grossi believed he had secured sweeping concessions from Tehran outlined in a vaguely-worded “Joint Statement.”
Little came of it, IAEA reports to member states show.
Grossi had hoped that statement would lead to re-installation of surveillance cameras and other monitoring equipment removed at Iran‘s behest in 2022. Instead, only a fraction of the cameras the IAEA wanted were re-installed.
DOUBTS
The IAEA has now lost track of parts of Iran‘s nuclear program of which the deal gave it oversight, such as the number of centrifuges — machines that enrich uranium — Iran possesses. The IAEA describes this in its reports as losing “continuity of knowledge.”
That has raised fears Tehran could set up a secret enrichment site, although there is no indication of one, diplomats say.
“The IAEA is understandably more concerned about the invisible, rather than the visible, part of Iran‘s nuclear program,” said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group.
Iranian nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami, speaking about Grossi’s visit, said on May 1 that Tehran hoped to strengthen cooperation with the IAEA, Iranian media reported.
The Biden administration’s reluctance to seriously confront Iran at the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors, which meets again in a month, has fed doubts over Grossi’s leverage.
“Is he likely to get anything? I don’t know,” a diplomat said, echoing widespread skepticism since the Joint Statement.
They added, however, that Grossi would not normally go without a clear sense of what Iran was prepared to agree to.
“Everyone knows this is a game Iran plays ahead of the Board of Governors meetings, where it routinely overpromises in order to avoid a censure and then underdelivers,” analyst Eric Brewer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative said.
“Grossi is well aware of that strategy, too. The key question is whether he can get anything concrete from Iran.”
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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students
Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
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