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Khamenei says Europe untrustworthy: Iran uses advanced centrifuges, says IAEA

By AFP
September 27, 2019

VIENNA: Iran has started using advanced models of centrifuges to enrich uranium, the UN’s nuclear watchdog said Thursday, in a new breach of the faltering 2015 deal with world powers.

Advanced centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz facility "were accumulating, or had been prepared to accumulate, enriched uranium", the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report seen by AFP.

Under the 2015 deal with world powers that puts curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief, Tehran is only meant to enrich uranium using less efficient IR-1 centrifuges. The landmark deal has been in jeopardy since May last year when President Donald Trump withdrew the US from it and reimposed sanctions.

The remaining parties to the deal with Iran -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- have tried to salvage the accord, but Tehran has repeatedly accused Europe of not doing enough.

Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader accused European governments of "hostility" Thursday, saying their actions showed they cannot be trusted. "The Europeans present themselves as mediators and say many things, but they are all hollow," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement on his official website.

"The countries which hold up the flag of hostility towards the Islamic system should not be trusted, principally America but some of these European countries as well, as they have a clear hostility towards the Iranian nation."

A landmark 2015 deal that put curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief has been on life support since May last year when President Donald Trump withdrew the US from it and reimposed sanctions.

The remaining parties to the deal with Iran -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- have tried to salvage the accord, but Tehran has repeatedly accused Europe of not doing enough. "The very people who did the negotiations now say that the Europeans have not acted on any of their commitments, and this is the strongest reason not to trust them over anything," Khamenei said.

His remarks follow a failed European push led by French President Emmanuel Macron to arrange a meeting between Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York this week.

At the same time the European parties to the nuclear deal, alongside the US and Saudi Arabia, have blamed Iran for this month’s attack on Saudi oil infrastructure. Tehran denies responsiblity for the attacks, which have been claimed by Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels. Addressing the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, Rouhani ruled out a meeting with Trump as long as the US maintain its economic pressure.

Khamenei went further, tweeting that the "doors are open to interaction, negotiation with all countries of the world except Zionist regime & US".

In a related development, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for caution over blaming Iran for this month’s attack on a Saudi Arabian oil facility in an interview with Fox News.

While Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes on September 14, Riyadh, Washington and several European governments say Iran was responsible. Tehran has denied any role in the strikes.

"I don’t think it would be the right thing to do to blame Iran," Erdogan said in the interview Wednesday at the UN in New York. "We need to recognise the fact that attacks of this scale come from several parts of Yemen.

"If we just place the entire burden on Iran, it wouldn’t be the right way to go because the evidence available does not necessarily point to that fact," he added, according to Fox News’ translation of his comments.

The strikes on the Abqaiq plant and the Khurais oil field knocked out half of Riyadh’s oil production which has since been largely restored. Erdogan also criticised US sanctions on Iran, saying such measures "have never solved anything".