Merkel And Her Likely Successor Will Discuss Iran With Biden
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her likely successor Olaf Scholz will discuss the Iran nuclear issue with US President Joe Biden when they meet during the G20 summit.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her likely successor Olaf Scholz will discuss the Iran nuclear issue with US President Joe Biden when they meet during the G20 summit.
Merkel has invited current finance minister Scholz to join bilateral discussions with other world leaders on the sidelines of the G20 summit this weekend, a German government official said on Thursday.
Merkel's bilateral meetings, which should cover topics such as nuclear talks with Iran, will include one with US President Joe Biden, the official added.
Germany, along with the United Kingdom and France, is a participant in the Vienna nuclear talks. Iran has suspended its participation in the negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) but announced on Wednesday that it will rejoin until the end of November.
The three German parties working to form a new coalition government aim to wrap up their talks by the end of November and hope to elect Social Democrat Scholz as the new chancellor in the week of Dec. 6, party officials said last week.
The fact that Merkel and Scholz will take part in the summit together is a sign of continuity in Germany's approach to the G20, the government official said.
Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency last week it had temporarily fed uranium enriched to up to 20% into extra “single machine and intermediate cascades...without any collection of products”, the IAEA said in a statement, adding it later verified Iran had begun feeding just one IR-6 centrifuge but the product was not being collected.
The move is likely to help Iran refine its knowledge of the enrichment process - something Western powers generally condemn because it is irreversible - but since this time the product is not being collected it will not immediately accelerate Iran's production of uranium enriched to close to weapons-grade.
Iran suspended multilateral talks in Vienna in June aimed at restoring the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear agreement that curbed its nuclear activities. In the meantime, it continues its uranium enrichment, stockpiling 20-percent and 60-percent enriched fissile material.
The JCPOA put a 3.65-percent enrichment cap on Iran. The 20-percent enrichment level is already high and the 60-percent degree of purity has no civilian use.
The latest move has, however, prompted the International Atomic Energy Agency to "increase the frequency and intensity of its safeguards activities" at the above-ground Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) at Natanz, the IAEA said in a report seen by Reuters. As of around 90% uranium is considered weapons-grade.
The IAEA said in a statement outlining the report that Iran informed it last week of changes to the setup of centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium, at the plant - Iran would feed uranium enriched to up to 20% into limited numbers of extra centrifuges without collecting the product.
"On 25 October 2021, the Agency verified that Iran began feeding (uranium hexafluoride gas) enriched up to 20% U-235 into a single IR-6 centrifuge in R&D line 2 at PFEP and that the resulting product and tails streams were being re-combined," the IAEA report said, meaning that after separating the enriched product it was mixed with the centrifuge's waste and not kept.
Iran had said it planned to also feed uranium enriched to up to 20% into other single centrifuges or small- to medium-sized cascades, or clusters, of machines on the same line, but those were not being fed at the time, the IAEA said.
Then-U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned the pact in 2018 and reimposed harsh U.S. sanctions. About a year later, Iran started violating some of the deal's limits on uranium enrichment.
President Joe Biden announced before his election that he intended to restore the JCPOA and in April the US, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China began talks in Vienna.
Iran has also curtailed IAEA’s monitoring activities since February, demanding that US lift sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy.
Report by Reuters
