News in Brief
No anti-Iran resolution to be passed in IAEA meeting: Report
No resolution against Iran will be passed in the upcoming meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, an informed source told ISNA.
According to a confidential report seen by AFP, the agency said that Iran’s estimated stockpile of enriched uranium had reached more than 27 times the limit set out in the 2015 accord.
In the report, IAEA head Rafael Grossi said, “Public statements made in Iran regarding its technical capabilities to produce nuclear weapons” have only increased “concerns about the correctness and completeness of Iran’s safeguards declarations”.
Ahead of an IAEA Board of Governors meeting next week, Grossi reiterated his call on Tehran to “cooperate fully and unambiguously with the agency”.
Kremlin warns of conflict with NATO if alliance troops fight in Ukraine
The Kremlin warned on Tuesday that conflict between Russia and the US-led NATO military alliance would be inevitable if European members of NATO sent troops to fight in Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine has triggered the worst crisis in Russia’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and President Vladimir Putin has previously warned of the dangers of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, Reuters reported.
French President Emmanuel Macron opened the door on Monday to European nations sending troops to Ukraine, although he cautioned that there was no consensus at this stage.
“The very fact of discussing the possibility of sending certain contingents to Ukraine from NATO countries is a very important new element,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about Macron’s remarks.
Asked by reporters about the risks if NATO members sent their troops to fight in Ukraine, Peskov said:
“In that case, we would need to talk not about the probability, but about the inevitability (of a direct conflict).”
Peskov said that the West should ask themselves if such a scenario was in the interests of their countries and their peoples.