Iran’s nuclear chief said Tuesday he hopes Tehran’s landmark atomic deal with world powers will survive President Donald Trump withdrawing the U.S. from it, warning the Islamic Republic’s program stands ready to build advanced centrifuges and further enrich uranium.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Ali Akbar Salehi stressed Iran would be guided by “prudence and wisdom” when weighing whether to abandon the deal if European nations fail to protect it from Trump.

The U.S. withdrawal from the deal already has badly shaken Iran’s anemic economy, crashing its currency, the rial. That likely will be compounded by U.S. sanctions coming in November that threaten Iran’s oil exports, a major source of government funding.

All this puts further pressure on the administration of Iran’s relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani, to whom Salehi reports as one of his vice presidents. But Salehi dismissed out of hand the idea of caving to American demands to renegotiate the accord.

“Yes, we have our problems. Yes, the sanctions have caused some problems for us. But if a nation decides to enjoy political independence, it will have to pay the price,” Salehi said. “If Iran decides today to go back to what it was before, the lackey of the United States, the situation would” be different.

Salehi heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, whose Tehran campus encompasses a nuclear research reactor given to the country by the U.S. in 1967 under the rule of the shah. But in the time since that American “Atoms for Peace” donation, Iran was convulsed by its 1979 Islamic Revolution and the subsequent takeover and hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

For decades since, Western nations have been concerned about Iran’s nuclear program, accusing Tehran of seeking atomic weapons. Iran long has said its program is for peaceful purposes, but it faced years of crippling sanctions.

The 2015 nuclear deal Iran struck with world powers, including the U.S. under President Barack Obama, was aimed at relieving those fears. Under it, Iran agreed to store its excess centrifuges at its underground Natanz enrichment facility under constant surveillance by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran can use 5,060 older-model IR-1 centrifuges at Natanz, but only to enrich uranium up to 3.67 percent.

That low-level enrichment means the uranium can be used to fuel a civilian reactor but is far below the 90 percent needed to produce a weapon. Iran also can possess no more than 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of that uranium. That’s compared to the 10,000 kilograms (22,046 pounds) of higher-enriched uranium it once had.

New facility

Salehi spoke to the AP on Tuesday about Iran’s efforts to build a new facility at Natanz that will produce more-advanced centrifuges, which enrich uranium by rapidly spinning uranium hexafluoride gas.

The new facility will allow Iran to build versions called the IR-2M, IR-4 and IR-6. The IR-2M and the IR-4 can enrich uranium five times faster than an IR-1, while the IR-6 can do it 10 times faster, Salehi said. Western experts have suggested these centrifuges produce three to five times more enriched uranium in a year than the IR-1s.

While building the facility doesn’t violate the nuclear deal, mass production of advanced centrifuges would. Salehi, however, said that wasn’t immediately a plan.

“This does not mean that we are going to produce these centrifuges now. This is just a preparation,” he said. “In case Iran decides to start producing in mass production such centrifuges, [we] would be ready for that.”

Salehi suggested that if the nuclear deal fell apart, Iran would react in stages. He suggested one step may be uranium enrichment going to “20 percent because this is our need.” He also suggested Iran could increase its stockpile of enriched uranium. Any withdrawal ultimately would be approved by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

‘Wrong move’

While the U.N. repeatedly has verified Iran’s compliance with the deal, Trump campaigned on a promise to tear it up. In May, he withdrew the U.S. in part because he said the deal wasn’t permanent and didn’t address Iran’s ballistic missile program and its influence across the wider Middle East. But Trump, meanwhile, has tweeted he’d accept talks without preconditions with Tehran.

Asked what he personally would tell Trump if he had the chance, Salehi chuckled and said: “I certainly would tell him he has made the wrong move on Iran.”

“I think [Trump] is on the loser’s side because he is pursuing the logic of power,” Salehi added. “He thinks that he can, you know, continue for some time but certainly I do not think he will benefit from this withdrawal, certainly not.”

In the wake of Trump’s decision, however, Western companies from airplane manufacturers to oil firms have pulled out of Iran. The rial, which traded before the decision at 62,000 to $1, now stands at 142,000 to $1.

Despite that, Salehi said Iran could withstand that economic pressure, as well as restart uranium enrichment with far more sophisticated equipment.

“If we have to go back and withdraw from the nuclear deal, we certainly do not go back to where we were before,” Salehi said. “We will be standing on a much, much higher position.”

Still, danger could loom for the program. The Stuxnet computer virus, widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation, once disrupted thousands of Iranian centrifuges.

A string of bombings, blamed on Israel, targeted a number of scientists beginning in 2010 at the height of Western concerns over Iran’s program. Israel never claimed responsibility for the attacks, though Israeli officials have boasted in the past about the reach of the country’s intelligence services.

“I hope that they will not commit a similar mistake again because the consequences would be, I think, harsh,” Salehi warned.
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Palestinians have filed a new complaint against Israel with the International Criminal Court, a top Palestinian official said Tuesday.

The Palestinians’ move came a day after the U.S. closed their de facto embassy in Washington, citing their leaders’ refusal to enter peace talks with Israel. National security adviser John Bolton also lashed out at the Palestinians for their attempts to have Israel prosecuted at the ICC, denouncing the court’s legitimacy and threatening sanctions if it targeted Israel and others.

But at a news conference in Ramallah, Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, doubled down by saying the Palestinians had asked the ICC to investigate Israel’s planned demolition of the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al Ahmar in the West Bank. He also indicated the Palestinians planned to join other international bodies.

Erekat said the Palestinians had asked the chief prosecutor to meet with village representatives and include Israel’s actions as part of her investigation into possible war crimes by Israel.

“The U.S. threats against the ICC are a coup against the rules in the international system,” he said. “The Trump administration wants to dismantle the international order to ensure that it can stay above the laws and escape accountability.”

Israel has long denounced Palestinian efforts to globalize their conflict by turning to external bodies with what it considers bogus claims. In particular, it says the ICC lacks jurisdiction because Israel is not a member of the court.

‘Already dead’ to US

The Trump administration dramatically ratcheted up its rhetoric by threatening sanctions if the court pursued investigations against the U.S., Israel or other allies. Bolton said the ICC “is already dead” to the U.S.

“The United States supports a direct and robust peace process, and we will not allow the ICC, or any other organization, to constrain Israel’s right to self-defense,” he said in a speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative, Washington-based think tank.

The administration also cited the refusal of Palestinian leaders to enter into peace talks with Israel as the reason for closing the Palestinian Liberation Organization office in Washington, although the U.S. has yet to present its plan to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the U.S. administration made the right choice.

“Israel supports the American actions that are meant to clarify to the Palestinians that their refusal to negotiate and attempts to attack Israel in international forums will not promote peace,” he said in a statement at the end of Jewish New Year holiday.

The Palestinians accuse the Trump administration of dismantling decades of U.S. engagement with them by blatantly siding with Israel. They say that given the recent moves by Washington, a pending U.S. peace plan will be dead on arrival.

The closure of the PLO office was the latest in a series of U.S. moves that targeted the Palestinians. Just last month, the administration canceled more than $200 million in aid for projects in the West Bank and Gaza as well as the remainder of its planned assistance for the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees around the Middle East. Over the weekend, it announced it would cut $25 million in assistance for hospitals in East Jerusalem that provide critical care to Palestinian patients.

“We don’t want confrontation with the U.S., by the way, but how can anyone with all these American decisions, Trump’s decisions, believe that these people can be honest brokers, facilitators in any peace process? They are no longer partners in the peace process,” Erekat said.

He said Israel should be held accountable for its plans for the Khan al-Ahmar encampment, a West Bank hamlet that has focused attention on what critics say is the displacement of Palestinians by Israel. European countries urged Israel this week to refrain from demolition.

Israel says Khan al-Ahmar was illegally built and has offered to resettle residents 12 kilometers (7 miles) away. But critics say it’s impossible for Palestinians to get building permits and that the demolition is meant to make room for an Israeli settlement.

Israel’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal last week, paving the way for demolition.

Palestinian trailers

Palestinian activists put up several trailers early Tuesday in protest. Abdallah Abu Rahmeh said the white shipping containers, one with a Palestinian flag, were a message to Israel that “it’s our right to build on our land.”

Meanwhile, the Palestinian envoy to Washington said his staffers have been given a month to pack up after the U.S. punished them for what the State Department called the Palestinian leadership condemnation of “a U.S. peace plan they have not yet seen.”

Husam Zomlot told The Associated Press the closure of the PLO mission would not deter Palestinians from seeking a state with East Jerusalem as the capital.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas halted ties with the Trump administration in December after the U.S. recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The U.S. Embassy was later moved there from Tel Aviv.

Zomlot was called home by Abbas in the spring as part of the crisis. 

“We lost the U.S. administration but we gained our national rights,” Zomlot said.
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Islamic State on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on the Tripoli headquarters of the Libyan state oil company that occurred the day before, according to SITE, a U.S.-based intelligence group that monitors extremists.

Two staffers at the National Oil Corporation were killed and 10 were wounded. The three attackers were also killed.

A statement from Amaq, the IS news agency, said it targeted the “economic interests of the pro-Crusader governments of the tyrants of Libya.”

The U.N. mission in Libya condemned what it called a “cowardly terrorist attack.”

Libya has been in nonstop political and social turmoil since longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi was toppled and killed in 2011.

A rival government is jockeying for power with a U.N.-installed administration in Tripoli, which is struggling to assert its authority across the country.

Extremists, including Islamic State militants, claim to have a number of so-called “sleeper cells” inside Libya.
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Turkey is urging the international community to intervene to prevent Syria from launching an offensive in Syria’s last remaining rebel-held Idlib enclave. The latest call for action comes as Syrian government forces mass around Idlib ahead of an expected assault for control of the enclave.

“I call on everyone to raise their voices against the Syrian regime’s aggression and find a peaceful solution,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday in Romania, where he held talks with his Romanian and Polish counterparts. His comments echoed recent remarks by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In an article posted Monday in The Wall Street Journal, Erdogan warned, “The consequences of inaction are immense,” and “a regime assault would also create serious humanitarian and security risks for Turkey, the rest of Europe and beyond.”

Separately, the head of the U.N. humanitarian agency, Mark Lowcock, has warned that a ground offensive in Idlib could lead to the biggest loss of life this century has seen.

Ankara fears a refugee exodus from the bordering Idlib enclave. Turkey already hosts more than 3 million Syrian refugees, with Erdogan warning that his country can take no more.

More than half of Idlib’s refugees are already displaced from other parts of Syria, along with tens of thousands of rebel fighters. Syria, backed by Russia, accuses many of the rebels of belonging to terrorist groups.

Turkish intentions

Ankara is one of the backers of rebels fighting the Syrian government, including groups based in the enclave. Analysts say that along with humanitarian concerns, the survival of Idlib as a rebel base is key to Ankara’s broader strategic Syrian goals.

“Turkey needs to hold some portion of Syria and pose a credible threat to [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad and force Assad into a peace agreement that would accept refugees” to return from Turkey, said political analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. “Keeping parts of Idlib and Afrin and the al-Bab region is a crucial component of this game plan.”

In the last 18 months, Turkish-led rebel groups have taken control of the Afrin and al-Bab regions. Ankara justified the cross-border operations to deal with the twin threats of the Islamic State group and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party fighters, or PKK. The PKK, which Ankara considers a terrorist group, has been waging a long-running insurgency in southeast Turkey for greater Kurdish rights.

Ankara, however, is concerned that if Idlib were to fall to Syrian government forces, Turkey’s broader military presence in Syria would be next in Damascus’ sights, according to analysts.

“If Bashar al-Assad secures his power all around Syria, with the exception of those pockets controlled by Turkey, this means we are on a collision course with Damascus,” said former Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, who served widely in the region.

“What Ankara said about Turkey’s operations into Syria is to keep the PKK away from the Turkish borders,” he said, adding, “The unsaid objective is to keep Assad far from Turkey’s borders.”

Given Erdogan’s strong support of the Syrian rebels and commitment to bring down the Syrian leader, Ankara fears a victorious Assad could be tempted to extract revenge on Turkey. In the past, Damascus allowed the PKK to use Syria as a base to attack Turkey.

“Turkey’s end goal — it wants to create a situation in Syria — is that these neighboring Syria regions to Turkey continue to be controlled by pro-Turkish elements so that there is no security threat to Turkey,” said Sinan Ulgen, head of the Turkey-based Edam research institution.

Military buildup

Turkish reinforcements continue their buildup along the border of the Idlib enclave, with long-range artillery among the deployments with a range of 40 kilometers (25 miles). Local reports say some military forces have entered Syria to support 12 Turkish observation posts across the enclave.

“Turkey can resist quite plausibly the Assad regime. Turkey can deal with Assad. Idlib can be defended against the regime,” Selcen said.

Other analysts say they are not completely convinced. Soli Ozel, an international relations expert with Istanbul’s Kadir Has University, asked how Turkey could “have a war with the Syrian regime, if the Syrian regime is being supported by the Russians to the bitter end, and the Russians control the airspace?”

Russian warplanes are already bombing rebels across Idlib, a bombardment predicted to intensify ahead of the widely expected offensive.

For the past 18 months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been cultivating a deepening relationship with Erdogan, much to the angst of Turkey’s NATO allies. Ankara is likely to be banking that Moscow will be careful to avoid any confrontation in Syria.

“We cannot envisage Russia bombing Turkey’s military presence in Idlib,” Selcen said.

Analysts suggest Erdogan could be engaging in a high-stakes gamble, betting that Moscow and Damascus aren’t ready to risk a clash with Turkey and could yet seek a last-minute diplomatic settlement over Idlib.

Last week, Erdogan met with Putin, along with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, at a trilateral summit in Tehran. The talks appeared to end in deadlock over efforts to avert conflict in Idlib. Tehran also backs Damascus in Syria’s seven-year-old civil war.
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U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres appealed Tuesday for the parties in Syria to avoid a full-scale battle for Idlib.

Idlib is the last so-called “de-escalation zone in Syria,” Guterres told reporters. “It must not be transformed into a bloodbath.” 

Some 3 million civilians are living in the northwestern governorate, and the U.N. has repeatedly warned that there will be a humanitarian catastrophe if there is a military escalation there. 

Russia, Iran and Turkey are known as the Astana guarantors — they oversaw the creation one year ago of four de-escalation zones in Syria that were supposed to be safer for civilians. They included parts of Idlib, Hama, eastern Ghouta and southern Syria. Only Idlib remains, the others have been militarily brought back under regime control.

Guterres appealed directly to the troika. 

“It is important that those — especially the three guarantors of the Astana process — find a way in which it is possible to isolate terrorist groups. And it is possible to create a situation in which civilians will not be the price paid to solve the problem of Idlib.”

He said he understood that the situation in the governorate is unsustainable — the U.N. estimates some 15,000 terrorists are mixed in among Idlib’s residents — but that “fighting terrorism does not absolve warring parties of their core obligations under international law.”

De-escalation zone

Earlier, the U.N. Security Council met at Russia’s request so it could be briefed on the outcome of last Friday’s summit of the presidents of the Astana group. It was the third meeting on Idlib in the past week. 

Turkey’s U.N. ambassador renewed his president’s calls to preserve the Idlib de-escalation zone and called for an immediate cease-fire. 

“There is no doubt that an all-out military operation would result in a major humanitarian catastrophe,” Ambassador Feridun Hadi Sinirlioǧlu told the council. “Such an operation would trigger a massive wave of refugees and tremendous security risks for Turkey, the rest of Europe and beyond.”

Turkey already hosts 3.5 million Syrians, and its hospitality has been stretched to its limit.

He urged the international community to support Turkey’s call for a cease-fire. 

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the United States would consider any large-scale military assault on Idlib as a “reckless escalation” and called on Russia to prevent it.

“Russia has the power to stop the catastrophe looming in Idlib,” Haley, a member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet, told council members. “They have the power to stop the killing.”

She said the Astana process had failed to stop the violence or promote a political solution. 

“Russia, Iran and (Bashar al-) Assad are demolishing Idlib and asking us to call it peace,” Haley said. “But here’s the reality: Astana has failed.”

She warned of potential military escalation and said that if the Assad regime, backed by Russia and Iran, continue on this path, “the consequences will be dire.”

Haley also repeated her warning that Washington would not tolerate the use of chemical weapons. 

For weeks, the Russians have been accusing the West of conspiring to carry out a chemical weapons attack through rebel groups and the civil society first responders, the White Helmets, and then blaming the Assad government for it as a pretext for military intervention. 

Moscow’s U.N. envoy fired back, accusing some council members of escalating rhetoric. 

“The wordings started sounding basically along the lines that saying force against a sovereign state — Syria — can be used, and not only related to alleged use of chemical weapons, but basically also if there is a military operation in Idlib,” Vassily Nebenzia said. “We are not talking about a military operation. It’s an anti-terrorist operation.”

The Russian ambassador noted that de-escalation zones were created as “temporary entities,” not permanent ones.

“Sooner or later, they were to be replaced, first by local truces. And in those cases where that did not take place, by an anti-terrorist operation, which happened in other de-escalation areas, which are currently under the control of Syrian authorities.”

Nebenzia dismissed plans by the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons, saying they no longer had any, and if they did use them, it would be an “invitation” to Britain, France and the United States to strike the country. He also claimed to have “irrefutable proof” that the Syrian opposition was planning a chemical attack, but he did not offer it. 

 
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