US Will Not Offer Resolution On Iran At Upcoming IAEA Meeting– Reports

He assured that everything was being done to obtain his release, although his office kept Iran’s hostage-taking under wraps all along, while holding talks with Iran on the nuclear issue.

Sweden on Monday said a Swedish citizen in his 30s was arbitrarily detained in Iran last year and called for his immediate release.

The Swedish government didn’t identify the man, but Borrell named him as Johan Floderus, a Swede who is working for the European Union.

Citing anonymous sources, the New York Times said Floderus was arrested on a private trip to Iran for possible use by Tehran as a bargaining chip in efforts to seek concessions from the West.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, told the semi-official Fars news agency that he had no information on the case. However, Iran had announced in July 2022 that it had detained a Swedish citizen.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry said the man was detained in Iran in April last year but declined to give details.

Last month, the United States announced a “prisoner exchange” deal with Iran to free five US citizens. At the same time Washington allowed $9 billion of Iran’s frozen funds in South Korea and Iraq to be released.

The EU, Germany, France, The United Kingdom and the US have been trying to reach a deal with Iran to revive the JCPOA nuclear agreement abandoned by the Trump administration in 2018.

Reporting by AP

The defendant is alleged to have received directives from the Iranian government, with the primary target being a synagogue situated adjacent to the school.

The 36-year-old defendant, a dual Iranian-German citizen, is set to face trial on September 12th in the regional high court of Dusseldorf, as indicated by the official indictment. He has been charged with orchestrating an arson attack under the orders of Iranian government authorities, targeting a synagogue in the Ruhr region of western Germany.

Court documents reveal that the accused made unsuccessful attempts to recruit an acquaintance as an accomplice in executing the attack plan, with the acquaintance subsequently reporting the matter to law enforcement authorities.

The incident, which happened in mid-November, resulted in only minor damage. Since that time, the accused has remained in custody.

Prior to these developments, German media had referred to the accused as Babak J. and linked him to an earlier synagogue attack in the city of Essen, in November. Reports indicated that he had also been planning a third attack on a synagogue in Dortmund, where he was eventually apprehended.

Citing information from an intelligence source within the Ministry of Sports and Youth, IranWire disclosed that Abolfazl Ameri Shahrabi, the Deputy Prosecutor of Arak, and Majid Abbaszadeh, a member of the intelligence organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were sent abroad to boxing event under the guise of international referees.

According to the report, Ameri Shahrabi's involvement in the world of boxing dates back to his participation in the national boxing team's camps between 1995 and 1998. He transitioned into refereeing the sport during the early 2010s. The report further revealed ongoing discussions about the potential transfer of Ameri Shahrabi to Tehran to assume a new position in one of Tehran's sensitive judicial centers.

Ameri Shahrabi is the same judicial official who filed charges against Sadrollah Fazeli Zarei and Yousef Mehrdad, who were executed in May 2023on accusations of blasphemy and insulting religious and Islamic sanctities on social media.

On a related note, Majid Abbaszadeh, a boxing referee and a member of the intelligence protection organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, assumed the position of the head of the Tehran Boxing Association in July of this year.

This disclosure of the overseas travels of these two individuals with judicial and intelligence affiliations to European and American countries comes at a time when Western nations have imposed sanctions on numerous officials of the Islamic Republic.

Johan Floderus, 33, who worked for the European Union's diplomatic corps, was arrested at Tehran airport in April 2022 as he prepared to depart the country after what was described as a private tourist trip with friends.

In July 2022, the Iranian government released a statement announcing that it had apprehended a Swedish national for espionage who was being held in Evin prison, however they did not disclose any further details.

The New York Times spoke to six individuals with first-hand knowledge of the case, who all confirmed that Floderus’ had nothing to do with any espionage claims.

The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs said it would not comment on the details of the case, citing a need for secrecy. “A Swedish citizen — a man in his 30s — was detained in Iran in April 2022,” its press department said in a recent email. “The Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Embassy of Sweden in Tehran are working on the case intensively.”

“We understand that there is interest in this matter, but in our assessment, it would complicate the handling of the case if the ministry were to publicly discuss its actions,” it added.

Floderus was detained when EU diplomats were hard at workto broker a nuclear deal between Iran and the United States. Two top EU foreign policy officials visited Tehran in mid-2022, while they kept his detention hidden from the public and European institutions. It is not clear to what extent the fact that one of their employees was held hostage impacted their mediating role.

Hannah Neuman, a German member of the European Parliament commented on the case on social media saying that parliament should have been informed about Floderus’ arrest, as well as attempts to secure his release and the impact on JCPOA negotiations.

She directly criticized the EU's policy of keeping Floderus’ arrest and detainment a secret as it may impact attempts to revive nuclear diplomacy. Others called for a policy re-think. “A serious recalibration of policy is needed,” said Kasra Aarabi, an academic, who took to social media to comment on the case. He further demanded the proscription of the IRGC and consolidated international action against the Iranian regime.

The European External Action Service, the diplomatic service for which Floderus works confirmed that they have been following the case very closely and that his arrest “underlines the very concerning tendency of Iranians to use EU nationals or Iranian dual nationals as pawns for political reasons." However, neither Swedish nor EU authorities have publicly discussed the situation, citing the need for confidentiality.

“This case has also to be seen in the context of the growing number of arbitrary detentions involving EU citizens,” added Nabila Massrali, a spokeswoman for the EU bloc’s diplomatic body. “We have used and will continue to use every opportunity to raise the issue with the Iranian authorities to obtain the release of all arbitrarily detained EU citizens.”

The arrest of Floderus follows a pattern of Iran detaining dual nationals and foreigners on dubious charges to use them as bargaining chips for prisoner exchanges or to extract concessions and funds.

A recent deal saw five American prisoners being released in return for freeing up $6bn of frozen Iranian funds in South Korea, which puts an approximate price of $1.2bn per head.

Relations between Iran and Sweden have soured recently, notably with the sentencing of a former senior Iranian judicial official, Hamid Nouri, to life in prison in Sweden for war crimes committed in Iran. Iran has escalated pressure on Sweden in response.

In reports to diplomats of countries forming the board of directors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the watchdog’s experts also said there has been no progress in talks with Tehran on sensitive issues such as explaining uranium traces at undeclared sites. The head of Iran’s nuclear agency has claimed repeatedly in recent months that the IAEA’s questions have been “satisfactorily” addressed regarding to the undeclared sites use more than two decades ago.

According to one of the confidential quarterly reports to member states seen by Reuters and other media, the IAEA said Iran's stockpile of uranium enriched to up to 60-percent purity, close to the roughly 90% of weapons grade, continued to increase albeit at a slower pace, despite some of it having been diluted.

"The (IAEA) Director General (Rafael Grossi) regrets that there has been no progress in resolving the outstanding safeguards issues in this reporting period," one report said, referring to Iran's failure to credibly explain the origin of uranium particles found at two undeclared sites.

The reports, sent to IAEA member states ahead of a quarterly meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors next week, also said that after limited progress on re-installing IAEA surveillance cameras in the previous quarter, there had since been none, further raising tensions with Western powers.

Iran and the IAEA announced an agreement in March on re-installing surveillance cameras introduced under a deal with major powers in 2015 but removed at Iran's behest last year. Only a fraction of the cameras and other monitoring devices the IAEA wanted to set up have been installed. But US officials have already acknowledged, according to Bloomberg that they have reduced enforcement of sanctions that has led to a doubling of Iran's oil exports since mid 2022.

Adding to the issues likely to cause tension with the West, Iran's stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent grew by an estimated 7.5 kg to 121.6 kg, the report said, even though 6.4 kg of it was diluted with uranium enriched to a lower level.

Iran's production of uranium enriched to up 60 percent has slowed to around 3 kg a month from about 9 kg a month previously, a senior diplomat said.

Other diplomats have said the slowdown could be part of so-called "de-escalation" efforts between Iran and the United States also involving Iranian funds frozen abroad and US prisoners held in Iran, though US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has denied the issues are linked.

"Of course, Iran claims (the slowdown in enrichment to up to 60%) as a positive, but more HEU (highly enriched uranium) is still more HEU," one Western diplomat said.

CAMERAS WITHOUT FOOTAGE

Iran's stock of uranium enriched to 60 percent is now almost three times the roughly 42 kg that by the IAEA's definition is theoretically enough, if enriched further, to produce a nuclear bomb. Experts add, however, that some uranium would be lost in the process. Iran denies wanting to produce nuclear weapons.

The IAEA continues to have regular access to Iran's declared nuclear facilities and its core nuclear activities under long-standing agreements that predate the 2015 nuclear deal, but the 2015 deal added monitoring to areas such as the production of parts for centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium.

Even where IAEA monitoring equipment has been re-installed, such as at a site in Isfahan, it does not have access to the footage that its cameras record since that was not included in the March agreement it negotiated with Iran.

One of Monday's reports spelled out that problem.

"The Director General reiterates that for Agency cameras to be effective, including those installed at Esfahan, the Agency needs access to the data they record."

With reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg