Iran demands US halt strikes to resume diplomatic talks – BBC

A member of Iran’s National Security Committee has accused the United States and Israel of establishing intelligence networks and cultivating infiltrators inside Iran over the past decade.

“The United States and Israel have established and nurtured intelligence networks and infiltrating elements inside Iran during nearly the past ten years,” said MP Abolfazl Zohrevand.

He also warned that the ceasefire with Israel could collapse at any moment.

The CIA director has told US lawmakers that American military strikes delivered a major blow to Iran’s nuclear program by destroying its only metal conversion facility, the Associated Press reported Sunday, citing a US official familiar with the classified briefing.

John Ratcliffe made the assessment during a closed-door hearing with members of Congress last week, calling the attack a “monumental setback” for Tehran’s nuclear capabilities that could take years to recover from, according to the unnamed official.

The revelation comes amid continued scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers over the scope and impact of the strikes carried out before last Tuesday’s ceasefire between Iran and Israel.

US intelligence believes the majority of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is now buried beneath the rubble of the Isfahan and Fordow sites—two of the three key nuclear facilities hit in the strikes, Ratcliffe told lawmakers.

Iran's foreign minister has called for an emergency session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to condemn Israel's military campaign targeting what he called industrial chemical facilities in Iran.

"The Islamic Republic has called for an emergency session of the Executive Council of the OPCW to examine and condemn the inhuman attacks on the country's infrastructure, including industrial chemical facilities," said Abbas Araghchi in a statement on Sunday.

"Iran, as the largest victim of chemical weapons in modern history, is a strong advocate for a world free of weapons of mass destruction and the initiator of a Middle East free of nuclear weapons," Araghchi added.

"The country has always been at the forefront of the fight against these weapons," he said.

The statement was published on the 38th anniversary of Saddam Hussein's chemical attack against Sardasht in western Iran, which, according to OPCW documentation, killed over 100 people in a large-scale mustard gas attack.

A pundit on Iran's state-run TV said on Sunday that the current ceasefire is merely a brief period for Israel and the US to regroup, and they will resume their attacks on Iran soon.

"The available evidence indicates that Israel, with US support, will resume its surprise and destructive military operations against Iran within a week at most," said Ebrahim Mottaqi, head of the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Tehran, in a televised interview.

“Israel and the United States view the ceasefire as a means of regrouping and optimizing their own military capabilities,” he said.

Mottaqi called on Iranian officials to not take the ceasefire seriously, adding, "Iranian officials would be the targets of such an attack."

One of the main drivers behind Israel’s decision to strike Iran this month was a highly alarming breakthrough in Iran’s nuclear program, which suggested it was much closer to a nuclear bomb than previously believed by Israeli officials, a report by Israel's Channel 12 said.

The report added that a group of Iranian scientists had been secretly working on nuclear weapons development in a way that caused serious concern among Israeli intelligence and leadership.

It said that the operation aimed to stop this effort and specifically target the scientists involved — who, according to the report, “were indeed eliminated.”