Israel’s UN Envoy Slams Security Council’s Silence On Iran

In an opinion piece published by the Time on Monday, Barak said the nuclear agreement – or the JCPOA – failed to delay Iran from having enough highly enriched uranium for nukes, and the 2018 US withdrawal from that same agreement allowed Iran to "legitimize” its progress toward "threshold nuclear" status. “In 2018 they were some 17 months away from that threshold. Today they are probably just 17 days away.” 

Echoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s remarks eight months ago that if an agreement is not achieved within weeks, it might not be worth signing, he said that “That’s even more true today” as Iran “kept enriching uranium and has turned from a country that Russia was assigned to monitor into a country supplying Russia with armed drones.”

Describing a new agreement as mainly aimed at keeping for appearances, he said such a deal provides “both sides a ‘denial umbrella’ for domestic needs — for the US, avoiding tougher realities and choices, and, for the Iranians, keeping sanctions at the lightest level possible.”

Noting that Iran will turn into a de-facto threshold nuclear state this summer, he said, “Both Israel and (for sure) the US can operate over the skies of Iran against this or that site or installation and destroy it. But once Iran is a de-facto threshold nuclear state this kind of attack simply cannot delay the Iranians from turning nuclear.”

Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Tuesday that Israel has the ability to stop Iran’s nuclear development or merely delay it, noting, “Iran is a global problem. It is not just Israel’s private problem.”

Chairman of the Board of the German Federal Association for Economic Development and Foreign Trade (BWA) Michael Schumann attended a meeting with Iranian lawmaker Ehsan Ghazizadeh Hashemi and Iran's ambassador to Germany Mahmoud Farazandeh as well as Alireza Peyman-Pak, the head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization on Tuesday. 

According to the Iranian government’s website IRNA, Schumann said trade relations with the Islamic Republic can be expanded regardless of political issues. He welcomed the establishment of the Iranian trade center in Berlin, and called for allocating more space to German businessmen at expos in Iran.

The report quoted him as saying that sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic have proven to be more detrimental to the German businessmen than their Iranian counterparts. 

On July 21, the British ambassador to Iran also highlighted business opportunities to boost UK-Iran trade regardless of the result of the talks to restore the 2015 nuclear talks, known as the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). “Just back from Shiraz with our Trade Team... Plenty of great companies in Fars, with opportunities for quality UK products & services to boost UK-Iran trade, JCPOA or not,” Simon Shercliff tweeted. 

Asked during a briefing about the British Ambassador’s remark, Spokesperson Ned Price referred to shared goals with European allies to uphold US sanctions until there is anuclear agreement with Iran.

The director of the Behesht-e Zahra, Saeed Ghazanfari, confirmed on Monday that the cemetery has removed about 100 gravestones which had pictures of deceased women without veils. 

He added that the procedure will continue in the future "in accordance with the opinion of [religious] scholars" until all the gravestones with such pictures are removed, adding that a four-member team has been set up to prevent the installation of stones with unconventional images.

He claimed the move was made "in coordination" with the bereaved families to get their consent, but social media reports say the families were contacted after the pictures were removed. 

Iran’s security organs have also started arresting women who participated in a nationwide civil disobedience campaign against hijab on July 12.

Following a call by women’s rights activists for civil disobedience with the hashtag of ‘No2Hijab’ social media exploded with dozens of videos and photos of women unveiling in public.

In the past few weeks, the government has increased harassment of women for their insufficient hijab and many have been detained by special police patrols.

Hadi Beiginejad, a member of the parliament's energy committee, told the Iranian government’s official website IRNA on Tuesday that Iran’s progress in the field of building unmanned aerial vehicles has significantly changed the country’s image in the international arena.

He said selling drones has strengthened Iran's ties with friendly countries, describing it as a beneficial factor for the peace and stability of the region.

He added that the United States has admitted to rise of Iran’s might in drone productions, and is well aware of the cost of dealing with Iranian drones in the region.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan warned twice in July that Moscow appears to be looking at buying Iranian drones and Russian officers even visited a drone base in Iran’s Kashan to review their options. His statements hinted at possible training of Russian crews to operate the drones and said the this would cause more civilian deaths in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the head of US Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns said on July 20, “It’s true that the Russians are reaching out to the Iranians to try to acquire armed drones,” Bloomberg reported. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Mike Milley also confirmed that Russia is planning to obtain Iranian drones to strengthen its weakening position in battles.

An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky told Iran International on Monday that Russia and Iran are allies in the Ukraine war and it won’t be a surprise if Tehran supplies drones to Moscow.

Florida's Democratic Representative Ted Deutch said on Monday that Tehran’s decision is extremely worrying, underscoring his “deep concern about how any nuclear deal with Iran can be verifiable and enforceable.”

He described the decision as “particularly egregious” after Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reiterated that Iran's nuclear program is "galloping ahead," and saying that the IAEA would lose its understanding of the state of Iran's program if the cameras were not restored in three or four weeks, a window that has since passed. 

“Moreover, Iran also just declared that it will not answer IAEA’s outstanding questions about uranium particles found at undeclared nuclear sites in Iran, directly contradicting the censure resolution that was overwhelmingly passed by the IAEA Board of Governors last month,” Deutch added. Tehran’s relations with the agency have particularly soured since the June’s resolution.

The US congressman highlighted that such announcements “reflect Iran’s dangerously escalatory nuclear behavior,” saying that he is glad about the US commitment to ensure that Iran will never acquire a nuclear weapon – which was strengthened by the Jerusalem Declaration. 

Iran’s atomic chief Mohammad Eslami said Monday Iran would not switch on nuclear-monitoring cameras turned off in June until the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) is restored.