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TOP STORIES
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday Iran was
playing with fire after Tehran said it had exceeded its limit for
low-enriched uranium allowed under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Asked at a White House event if he had a message for Iran, Trump said
he did not have a message, but Iran knew what it was doing and was
"playing with fire."
A week ago, a small tanker ship approached the Persian
Gulf after a 19-day voyage from China. The captain, as required
by international rules, reported the ship's position, course,
speed and another key detail: It was riding high in the water,
meaning it was probably empty. Then the Chinese-owned ship, the Sino
Energy 1, went silent and essentially vanished from the grid.
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Monday that Iran is
deliberately violating the 2015 nuclear Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action. Europe now has to decide whether to tolerate this nuclear
breakout or join the U.S. in pressuring Tehran to renegotiate. The nuclear
deal allowed Iran to store 300 kilograms of uranium, which it could
enrich up to 3.67% concentration. Mr. Zarif said in an interview that
the country now exceeds the storage limit.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
France's president is urging Iran to immediately reduce
its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium and stick to the terms of the
2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Emmanuel Macron said in a
statement Tuesday that he "took note with concern" of
Iran's announcement that it has surpassed the limit of 300 kilograms
(661 pounds) of low-enriched uranium laid out in the accord.
Iran said Monday that it has exceeded the stockpile
limit for low-enriched uranium allowed under the 2015 nuclear deal
between Iran and world powers because Europe has failed to mitigate
the impact of U.S. sanctions, a move that could add to the friction
between Tehran and Washington. The International Atomic Energy
Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, confirmed that Iran's
stockpile of low-enriched uranium exceeded the 300-kilogram
(660-pound) limit allowed under the deal, spokesman Fredrik Dahl
said.
Iran rejected on Tuesday a White House accusation that
Tehran was long violating the terms of its nuclear deal with world
powers, after the Islamic Republic said it had amassed more low-enriched
uranium than permitted under the accord. "Seriously?"
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a message on social
network Twitter, after a statement by White House press secretary
Stephanie Grisham that said, "There is little doubt that even
before the deal's existence, Iran was violating its terms."
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is
concerned that Iran has breached part of its 2015 nuclear deal with
world powers and urged the country to continue implementing all its
nuclear related commitments, a U.N. spokesman said. "Such
action by the Islamic Republic of Iran would not help preserve the
plan, nor secure the tangible economic benefits for the Iranian
people. It is essential that this issue ... be addressed through the
mechanism established by the JCPOA," U.N. spokesman Stephane
Dujarric told reporters.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday he thinks Iran
is "playing with fire" after the country announced it had
exceeded the limit on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium that was
part of the 2015 international deal restraining its nuclear program.
"They know what they're doing. They know what they're playing
with," Trump told reporters at the White House. An earlier White
House statement reiterated the U.S. position that it would
"never allow" Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on
Monday that Iran is "playing with fire," hours after the
country effectively acknowledged that it was
violating the terms of the 2015 multinational nuclear accord and
threatened to pursue weapons-grade uranium as soon as July 7.
"No, no message to Iran," Trump said. "They know
what they're doing. They know what they're playing with. And I think
the're playing with fire. So no message to Iran whatsoever."
Britain said on Monday it was urgently considering its
next steps with its partners under the terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear
deal after Iran said it had amassed more low-enriched uranium
than permitted under the agreement. Prime Minister Theresa May's
spokesman said Iran's announcement was "extremely
concerning" and Britain would keep working with its partners to
keep the deal in place.
With the Islamic Republic announcing that it has
breached uranium-enrichment limits agreed in the 2015 nuclear deal,
let's take a quick trip down memory lane, to remind ourselves of how
we got here. The first thing to keep in mind-and it is often
forgotten-is that Iran has only ever had one reason to start a
nuclear program: to menace its neighbors. This was true for Shah
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in the 1950s, and it is true of the theocratic
state that has followed.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Europe
on Monday to impose "automatic sanctions" on Iran for
accumulating more low-enriched uranium than permitted under its 2015
nuclear deal with major powers. "I say again that Israel
will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said,
according to a statement from his office.
Iran is not ready to engage in talks with the U.S. until
sanctions are lifted, an Iranian oil minister told CNBC on Monday.
"Iran is not ready to open discussions with United States,"
said Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh at the OPEC meeting in
Vienna to CNBC's Brian Sullivan. "If United States and the
administration wants to change the environment between the two
countries, firstly [it] should leave all sanctions put against Iranian
oil and other areas..."
The mechanism set up by European powers to help Iran
skirt US sanctions will be of limited use but it has highlighted a
welcome distance between Washington and its allies, Tehran's top
diplomat said Monday. The EU said Friday after a crisis meeting aimed
at salvaging a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world
powers that the INSTEX payment mechanism was finally
"operational" and that the first transactions were being
processed.
OPEC and its allies are presenting a unified front in
their quest to stabilize the oil market. But beneath the
surface, opposition is rising within OPEC against the way that Russia
and Saudi Arabia are dominating the group's decision making. Iran on
Monday threw its weight behind an apparent agreement in Vienna
by OPEC to extend production cuts for another six to nine
months. But Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh warned the unilateral
way that decision was reached is "threatening the existence of
OPEC."
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
As tensions between Washington and Tehran continue
to escalate to the point of a possible confrontation between
military forces, current and former US national security officials
remain focused on the potential threat posed by proxy groups
affiliated with Iran should war break out between the two nations.
Last month, the New York Times reported the White House had
set in motion an attack on Iranian military assets in response to
Tehran's downing of a US surveillance drone over the Strait of
Hormuz, but President Donald Trump reportedly called it off.
Hamza Abu Shanab, a Gaza-based political analyst
detailed Iran's long history of support for the organization in the
Gaza Strip in the Hamas-run newspaper Al-Resalah on Monday.
"Since its inception, the Iranian Islamic Revolution has been
building a special relationship with the parties of the Palestinian
revolution," wrote Shanab, who, according to the New York Times,
is close to Hamas.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Iranian media are reporting authorities have dismissed
prison officials following an investigation into the June death of a
jailed activist. The Tuesday report by the hard-line Mashregh news
website says the prisons director for the province of Tehran, Mostafa
Mohebi, was replaced, along with two unnamed prison officials. The
move followed a report by a fact-finding committee on the death of
Alireza Shirmohammadali, a 21-year-old activist sentenced to eight
years in prison over insulting the country's Islamic rulers and
identity.
A Lebanese U.S. permanent resident released by Iran last
month after almost four years in prison says he formed close bonds
with other inmates, including a little-known Iranian who also has
U.S. residency. In a VOA Persian interview at his Washington home
last week, Nizar Zakka shared new details of his interactions with
the other detainees at Tehran's Evin prison, where he spent a year in
solitary confinement after his September 2015 detention before being
moved to a cell with 50 other people.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
President Trump, after calling off a military
strike on Iran following the downing of an American drone last month,
delivered a stern warning to the regime during an interview with Fox
News. Speaking exclusively with Tucker Carlson, Trump said he
"built up a lot of great capital" after his decision -- but
said that means "if something should happen, we're in a position
to do far worse by not doing it." He quickly added, "But,
hopefully, we don't have to do anything."
A former joint chiefs' commander of Iran's Islamic
Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) had said that Iran should negotiate
with the United States, on its own initiative. Hossein Alaee in a
speech on June 30 told his audience that "we cannot leave aside
negotiations, whether at the apex of power or in a position of
weakness", the official IRNA news website reported.
Iran's announcement Monday that it has surpassed
the limit of low-enriched uranium it could stockpile under the
2015 nuclear agreement is an important development. But in the long and
twisted history of U.S. tensions with the Islamic republic, it's not
that big a deal. In fact, in light of the military strikes that were
being planned in response to Iran's downing of a U.S. drone,
this latest raising of the stakes was to be expected.
President Trump touched on an important moral and legal
issue when he said he called off a planned strike against Iran
because it was "not proportionate." Iran's shooting
down of a U.S. drone, he said, did not warrant an attack that might
kill 150 people. That forbearance, however, was nowhere to be found,
just days later, when Trump threw caution to the wind and threatened
Iran with "overwhelming force" if it dared to attack
"anything American."
IRANIAN REGIONAL AGGRESSION
Iran's exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi says the current
crisis in Iran is the result of Islamic Republic's policies in the
past four decades and its interventions in regional countries. Reza
Pahlavi, who is one of Iran's top opposition leaders in a
statement published on his Twitter account says the policy
of interfering in the affairs of neighboring countries are aimed to
export a revolution "which has failed inside Iran".
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
The head of Israel's intelligence service said flatly on
Monday that Iran was directly responsible for the repeated
attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, along with other targets
in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, that have raised tensions in the Middle
East. "They are a single campaign initiated by a single
party," Yossi Cohen, the chief of the Mossad, said in a speech
at a conference on national security at the Interdisciplinary Center,
a college in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv.
Israel will be destroyed in half an hour if the United
States attacks Iran, a senior Iranian parliamentarian said on Monday,
according to the semi-official Mehr news agency. Weeks of
tensions culminated last month in U.S. President Donald Trump's
last-minute decision to call off planned strikes on Iran after Tehran
downed a U.S. drone. Washington also accused Iran of being behind
attacks on ships in the Gulf, which Tehran denies.
Israel's energy minister said on Monday Iran was
carrying out "nuclear blackmail" by amassing more
low-enriched uranium than permitted under a deal with world powers,
according to Israel's Kan public broadcaster. Energy Minister Yuval
Steinitz told Kan that continued international pressure would cause
Tehran to back down. "It's a blatant violation of the agreement.
Iran is carrying out nuclear blackmail. It is saying, 'Look how close
we are to a nuclear weapon'," Steinitz was quoted as saying.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said after
meeting his Iranian counterpart Bijan Zanganeh in Vienna on Monday
that Moscow was interested in Iran remaining an equal player in the
global energy market, according to a statement released by the
Russian energy ministry. Washington has demanded that Saudi
Arabia pump more oil to compensate for lower exports from Iran after
the United States slapped fresh sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear
programme.
Russia on Monday said Iran's announcement that it had
exceeded a limit on its enriched uranium reserves was a cause for
"regret", but added this was a consequence of US actions.
Iran said earlier Monday it had "crossed the 300-kilogram
limit" set under a 2015 nuclear deal that was unilaterally
abandoned by US President Donald Trump last year. "(This) of
course is a cause for regret but one must not dramatize the
situation," Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said
in comments reported by news agencies.
CHINA & IRAN
China has expressed regret over Iran's move to break
limits on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium, but says
Washington's pressure campaign is the root cause of tensions. Foreign
ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters Tuesday that Beijing
remains committed to the 2015 agreement, known as the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action. He said all parties should exercise
restraint and safeguard the agreement to "avoid escalating
tensions."
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told
leaders of the G20 countries that the Kingdom does not want a war
with Iran, said a senior official. The crown prince is currently
touring Japan, after heading the Kingdom's delegation at the 14th G20
summit in Osaka. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir
said the crown prince told the leaders of the summit they need to
take a strong attitude toward Iran, reported Al Arabiya.
A member of France's Senate, who led a commission
investigating extremist networks in Europe and wrote a report for
Nato on the financing of terrorism, has criticised Qatar for enabling
terror financiers to use its banking system to carry out their transactions.
Writing in The Hill, Nathalie Goulet took as example the case of
Khalifa Al Subaiy, a Qatari financier who the US says long provided
financial support to senior Al Qaida leadership, including 9/11
mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad.
Nine people were reported injured on Tuesday after
Houthi rebels launched a drone attack on a civilian airport in
southern Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen, Saudi officials
said. According to Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led
coalition that has been fighting Houthis since 2015, all of those
injured in the attack were civilians and are currently in hospital in
a stable condition. Among the injured were eight Saudis and one
Indian passport-holder. The attack took place at around 12:30 a.m.
local time (2130 UTC/GMT).
IRAQ & IRAN
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi sought on Monday
to curb the powers of influential Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim
militias, a politically risky move apparently aimed at placating the
United States. Two weeks after the first of several unclaimed
attacks on bases in Iraq hosting U.S. forces and on a site used by a
U.S. energy firm, Abdul Mahdi issued a decree ordering militias to
integrate more closely into the formal armed forces.
CYBERWARFARE
Amid an intensifying standoff between Washington and
Tehran, hackers linked to Iran have in recent weeks stepped up their
operations in cyberspace in what appear to be preparations for
possible attacks on U.S. businesses, according to American security
firms and government officials. The increased Iranian activity
in cyberspace comes as Tehran announced on Monday that its stockpiles
of low-enriched uranium have exceeded limits established in the 2015
nuclear agreement inked by Iran and world powers.
After the U.S. launched a cyber strike on Iran's
weapons systems last month, military warfare could increasingly
look like a loss of connectivity - rather than a loss of life,
according to a cybersecurity expert. The attack on Iran's security
systems - used to control its rocket and missile launches - was a
"game changing" event for both the cyber-security industry
and "how we think about geopolitics," Splunk's Haiyan Song
told CNBC Tuesday. "A military action got diverted to really
becoming a cyber action," said Song.
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