IAEA chief holds phone call with Iran’s foreign minister – state media

A senior Iranian nuclear official has responded to recent comments by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, saying his statement about uranium enrichment was incorrect.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said that several countries enrich uranium without possessing nuclear weapons. “Countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, South Korea, Japan, Argentina, and Germany conduct uranium enrichment and do not have nuclear weapons,” he told Iranian media.

“It is unfortunate that the US secretary of state made such a statement without proper knowledge,” Kamalvandi said.

Rubio said last week, “The only countries in the world that enrich uranium are the ones that have nuclear weapons,” in remarks that drew criticism in Tehran.

Paknejad said the new operations could unlock substantial reserves. “There is potential to extract over 600 million barrels of crude oil in place from this area,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the 29th International Oil Exhibition in Tehran.

Exploratory drilling in Iran’s sector of the Caspian Sea had been largely inactive since the mid-1990s, due to technical, financial, and logistical challenges.

The minister did not specify when drilling would begin or which block would be targeted first.

The decision marks a renewed effort to join other Caspian littoral states — including Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan — that have developed significant offshore production in recent decades.

Iran remains the only Caspian country not currently extracting oil or gas from the sea. According to industry data, the region’s other coastal states collectively produced over 1.2 million barrels per day of oil and 50 billion cubic meters of gas in 2023, backed by more than $160 billion in cumulative investments.

International companies such as BP, TotalEnergies, Lukoil, Eni, and Dragon Oil have led offshore development in neighboring states. Meanwhile, Iran’s own efforts have faced repeated setbacks, including equipment failures, limited foreign investment, and deepwater technical constraints.

Despite previous announcements, including seismic surveys and attempted drillings using the Amir Kabir rig, Iran’s Caspian offshore activity has yielded no commercial output to date.

Alireza Doroudi, a mechanical engineering student at the University of Alabama, was detained in March and held at a facility in Louisiana after his visa was revoked. A US government attorney later said the revocation was “prudential,” meaning it would not take effect until he left the country.

Doroudi’s lawyer, David Rozas, told AP there was no evidence to support the government’s earlier claim that Doroudi posed a national security risk. He called the case a “travesty of justice.”

Doroudi’s fiancée, Sama Ebrahimi Bajgani, said the prolonged detention left him feeling pressured to abandon his legal challenge. “They just want to make him tired so he can deport himself,” she told AP.

In a letter written from detention, Doroudi called the case “pure injustice” and said he had followed all legal procedures. The immigration judge in the case denied his request for bond and set a deadline at the end of May for further motions. Rozas said Doroudi chose to stop fighting and self-deport.

Doroudi had specialized in metallurgical engineering, and his detention sparked concern on campus. The University of Alabama College Democrats described the arrest as a “cold, vicious dagger through the heart of UA’s international community.”

Doroudi’s case comes amid renewed scrutiny of the Trump administration’s policies on international students, including potential new visa restrictions for citizens of countries like Iran. In recent weeks, several other foreign students and recent graduates — including individuals from Turkey and Palestine — have been detained under national security-related reasons, prompting concern from rights groups and legal advocates.

Iranian Foreign Minister is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia and Qatar on Saturday as part of efforts to strengthen ties with regional neighbors, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said on Friday.

Baghaei told reporters that the minister will travel to Riyadh for talks with senior Saudi officials and later head to Doha to attend the Arab-Iranian Dialogue Conference.