Iran has told Europe's leading powers that it wants them to back its right to nuclear technology that can be used to make weapons. US officials said the move has dismayed the Europeans and strengthens Washington's push for UN sanctions against Tehran.
France, Germany and the UK have not formally responded to that demand and others contained in a wish list made available to The Associated Press.
But diplomats said Monday that Iran's conditions effectively stall the European attempt to persuade Tehran to give up the technology that would allow them to make nuclear arms, pushing Europe closer to the US view that it should be hauled before the UN Security Council for violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The Iranian demands, presented in the document last week to the European powers during talks in Paris, include:
A call on the EU Three to back Iran's insistence that it have access to "advanced [nuclear] technology, including those with dual use" -- a term for equipment and know-how with both peaceful and weapons applications;
A demand that they "remove impediments" -- current sanctions -- preventing Iran from having access to such technology;
An assurance that, once the European powers make such commitments, they stick to them even if faced with "legal [or] political ... limitations" -- an apparent allusion to potential Security Council sanctions on Iran;
Agreement by the EU Three to meet Iran's conventional weapons requirements;
And a commitment to push "rigorously and systematically" for a non-nuclear Middle East and to "provide security assurances" against a nuclear attack on Iran -- both allusions to Israel, which is believed to have nuclear arms and to have destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in a 1981 strike to prevent it from making atomic arms.
France, Germany and the UK last year had held out the prospect of supplying Iran with some "dual use" technology, but only in the distant future, and only if suspicions that Tehran might be seeking to make nuclear weapons were laid to rest.
With Iran still under investigation, the presentation of the wish list stunned senior French, German and British negotiators, according to an EU official familiar with the Paris meeting.
Ignoring the list, the Europeans instead urged Tehran to act on their pledge to clear up nagging suspicions about their nuclear ambitions by Sept. 13, when the International Atomic Energy Agency meets to review Iran's nuclear dossier, the official said.
In London, a Foreign Office spokesman declined comment on the negotiations with Iran beyond saying that the UK was "not prepared to stand by and watch them collect the necessary technology to make a weapon."
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS