Region

TEHRAN — Iran resumed uranium enrichment at its underground Fordow plant south of Tehran Thursday in a new step back from its commitments under a landmark 2015 nuclear deal, raising alarm from Western powers.

Engineers began feeding uranium hexafluoride gas into the plant's mothballed enrichment centrifuges in "the first minutes of Thursday", the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation said.

The suspension of uranium enrichment at the long-secret plant was one of the restrictions on its nuclear programme Iran had agreed to in return for the lifting of sanctions.

Iran's announcement that it would resume enrichment at the Fordow plant from midnight (2030 GMT Wednesday) had drawn a chorus of concern from the remaining parties to the troubled agreement.

Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia have been trying to salvage the hard-won deal since Washington abandoned it in May last year and reimposed crippling unilateral sanctions.

They say Iran's phased suspension of its obligations under the deal since May makes that more difficult.

The resumption of enrichment at Fordow is Iran's fourth step away from the agreement.

The United States called for “serious steps” to be taken in response to the move. 

“Iran’s expansion of proliferation-sensitive activities raises concerns that Iran is positioning itself to have the option of a rapid nuclear breakout,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

“It is now time for all nations to reject this regime’s nuclear extortion and take serious steps to increase pressure.”

Uranium enrichment is the sensitive process that produces fuel for nuclear power plants but also, in highly extended form, the fissile core for a warhead.

Iran is now enriching uranium to 4.5 per cent, exceeding the 3.67 per cent limit set by the 2015 deal but less than the 20 per cent level it had previously operated to and far less than the 90 per cent level required for a warhead.

Iran has always denied any military dimension to its nuclear programme.

It has been at pains to emphasise that all of the steps it has taken are transparent and swiftly reversible if the remaining parties to the agreement find a way to get round US sanctions.

“All these activities have been carried out under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA],” the Iranian nuclear organisation said.

UN inspector told to leave 

A source close to the United Nations watchdog told AFP that it has inspectors on the ground in Fordow and would report “very rapidly” on the steps taken by Iran.

Iran revealed on Thursday that it had withdrawn the credentials of one IAEA inspector last week after she triggered an alarm at the gate to Iran’s other enrichment plant at Natanz, raising suspicion she was carrying a “suspect product”.

It did not specify what the product was or whether it had actually been found in the inspector’s possession. 

But it promised that its representative to the IAEA would deliver a detailed a report on the incident at a special meeting on Iran held at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna.

At the meeting, the EU said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned” by what took place, but understood “that the incident was resolved”.

Reiterating the EU’s “full confidence in the inspectorate’s professionalism and impartiality”, the statement called “upon Iran to ensure that IAEA inspectors can perform their duties in line with its legally binding safeguards agreement”.

‘Grave’ decisions 

The resumption of enrichment at Fordow comes after the passing of a deadline it set for the remaining parties to the nuclear agreement to come up with a mechanism that would allow foreign firms to continue doing business with Iran without incurring US penalties.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed concern about Tehran’s announcements but said European powers should do their part.

“They are demanding that Iran fulfil all [obligations] without exception but are not giving anything in return,” he told reporters in Moscow.

The Kremlin has previously called sanctions against Iran “unprecedented and illegal”.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Iran had made “grave” decisions and its resumption of uranium enrichment was a “profound change” from Tehran’s previous position.

The next few weeks will be dedicated to increasing pressure on Iran to return within the framework of the pact, the French president said during a trip to Beijing, adding that this must be “accompanied by an easing of some sanctions”.

“A return to normal can only take place if the United States and Iran agree to reopen a sort of trust agenda” and dialogue, Macron said, adding that he would discuss the issue with Trump.

ISTANBUL — The wife of slain Daesh  leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi revealed “a lot of information” about the terrorist group’s “inner workings” after she was captured last year, a Turkish official said.

The official said that Baghdadi’s spouse identified herself as Rania Mahmoud but was in fact Asma Fawzi Muhammad Al Qubaysi.

She was said to be the “first wife” of the Daesh leader, who was killed in a US special forces raid in Syria last month.

The woman was arrested on June 2, 2018 in the province of Hatay, near the Syrian border, along with 10 others, including Baghdadi’s daughter, who identified herself as Leila Jabeer.

The official said the family links were confirmed using a DNA sample of Baghdadi provided by Iraqi authorities.

“We discovered [the wife’s] real identity pretty quickly. At that point, she volunteered a lot of information about Baghdadi and the inner workings of ISIS [Daesh],” the official said.

“We were able to confirm a lot of things that we already knew. We also obtained new information that led to a series of arrests elsewhere.”

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan revealed for the first time on Wednesday that she had been detained.

“We caught his wife — I say this today for the first time — but we didn’t make a big fuss about it,” Erdogan told a gathering of students in Ankara.

He confirmed that Turkey had also captured Baghdadi’s sister and brother-in-law.

Erdogan took a swipe at the United States for making a big deal of Baghdadi’s killing, saying: “They started a very big communication operation.”

The Daesh leader was killed in a US special forces raid carried out with the help of Kurdish fighters in the north-western Syrian province of Idlib, just across the border from Turkey.

According to the US account, Baghdadi ran into a dead-end tunnel in his hideout and detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and two children.

ENTEBBE, Uganda — South Sudan President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar have been given another 100 days to form a power-sharing government after failing to resolve differences over a peace deal.

The two leaders, whose fall out in 2013 sparked a conflict that has left hundreds of thousands dead, were given the extension after a rare face-to-face meeting held with regional heavyweights in Uganda.

It is the second time the deadline has been pushed back since the rivals signed a truce last September that brought a pause to fighting.

Both sides had agreed to join forces in a coalition government by November 12. But with the date looming and key issues far from resolved, regional leaders brokered high-level mediations in Entebbe to chart a way forward.

“It was really impossible to have them reach agreement in five days. We’ve given them three months and we will continue our engagement,” Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa told AFP following the closed-door discussions at State House in Entebbe.

The meeting “agreed to extend the pre-transitional period... and to review progress after fifty days from that date”, Kutesa said after the meeting, reading from an official communique.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, who heads neighbouring Sudan’s sovereign council, and Kalonzo Musyoka, a special envoy from Kenya, were among top delegates at the regional gathering.

The peace deal has largely stopped the fighting that erupted just two years after South Sudan achieved independence, violence that left nearly 400,000 dead and displaced close to 4 million people.

Observers had warned pushing the foes to form a unity government before disagreements over security and state boundaries were resolved threatened to plunge the country back into war.

Deadly rivalry 

Machar, who lives in exile in Khartoum and cannot travel freely in the region, had asked for more time so that the impasse over security and territory arrangements could be overcome.

The rebel leader warned that if these were not addressed, the country would see a repeat of fighting in 2016, when an earlier peace deal collapsed, worsening the conflict.

Machar, a former deputy to Kiir, fled South Sudan on foot under a hail of gunfire, and has only returned home on rare occasions, fearing for his safety.

Kiir had said he was ready to form a new government and had threatened to do it alone.

The US, Britain and Norway — the troika that leads policy towards South Sudan — had warned on Thursday that “any unilateral action is against the agreement and the spirit of the peace process”.

The creation of the coalition government, a key pillar of a September 2018 peace deal between the rivals, had already been delayed once in May when regional leaders brokered a six-month extension.

Some in the international community feared another extension risked the already tenuous peace accord derailing entirely. Pressure was being brought on Kiir, Machar and the other rebel signatories to respect the deadline.

International pressure 

The United States in particular has warned it would reevaluate its relationship with South Sudan if a unity government is not forged on November 12, and has floated sanctions.

But the International Crisis Group warned pushing the November 12 deadline at all costs risked this fragile truce.

“External actors could imperil these gains if they push the parties into a unity government that then falls apart or permit Kiir to exclude Machar,” the think tank wrote in a report this week.

The UN Security Council, on the eve of the Entebbe meeting, declared that fully implementing “all provisions of the peace agreement remains the only path that will set the country towards the goal of peace, stability and development”.

A cornerstone of the accord was that fighters from all sides would be gathered into military camps and trained as a unified army — a process dogged by delays and lack of funding.

Little progress has been made on negotiations around state boundaries — another major sticking point.

The EU, in a statement on Thursday before the extension was announced, urged the warring parties to demonstrate “genuine will to build peace” and set realistic deadlines for resolving outstanding issues.

RIYADH — Riyadh has an "open channel" with Yemen's Iran-backed rebels with the goal of ending the country's civil war, a Saudi official said Wednesday, weeks after the rebels offered to halt attacks on the kingdom.

The comment comes after Saudi Arabia brokered a power sharing agreement between Yemen's internationally recognised government and southern separatists, which observers say could pave the way for a wider peace deal.

"We have had an open channel with the Houthis since 2016. We are continuing these communications to support peace in Yemen," a senior Saudi official told reporters.

"We don't close our doors with the Houthis."

The official, who declined to be named, did not describe the nature of the communication.

There was no immediate comment from the Houthi rebels, who seized the capital Sanaa and much of northern Yemen in 2014, sparking a Saudi-led military intervention the following March.

Washington too is in talks with the Houthis, Assistant Secretary of Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker said during a visit to Saudi Arabia in September.

He did not say whether the Americans were holding talks separately with the rebels, but analysts say they were likely happening in consultation with Saudi Arabia, a key ally of Washington.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 as the rebels closed in on second city Aden, prompting President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee into Saudi exile.

‘Significant risk’ 

Wednesday’s confirmation comes amid the slow implementation of a landmark ceasefire deal for the key aid port of Hodeida, which was agreed between the government and the rebels in Sweden late last year.

The deal was hailed as Yemen’s best chance so far to end the four-year conflict, but it appears to be hanging by a thread with breaches reported by both sides.

“If the Houthis [are] serious to deescalate and accept to come to the table, Saudi Arabia will support their demand and support all political parties to reach a political solution,” the Saudi official said.

The Houthis, on their part, have offered to halt all attacks on Saudi Arabia as part of a wider peace initiative, later renewing their proposal despite continued air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition. 

The offer came after the Houthis claimed responsibility for attacks on September 14 against two key Saudi oil installations that temporarily knocked out half of the OPEC giant’s production.

Riyadh and Washington, however, blamed Iran for the attacks — a charge denied by Tehran.

Yemen’s Riyadh-backed government signed a power sharing deal with southern separatists on Tuesday, in a bid to end infighting that had distracted the coalition from its battle against the Houthis.

The Riyadh Agreement, hailed as a stepping stone towards ending the wider conflict, would see the government return to Aden and place armed forces from both sides under the authority of the defence and interior ministries.

“The deal prevents a collapse of the fragile alliance of Yemeni forces that Saudi Arabia has supported since intervening in Yemen in March 2015 to prevent Houthi rebels from taking over the country,” Peter Salisbury, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, said in a report. 

“The question now is whether the agreement can act as a bridge to a nationwide political settlement or if it simply marks a pause before another round of violence.”

ALGIERS — Striking Algerian judges returned to work on Wednesday, a day after their main union announced an end to a mass 10-day walkout over alleged executive interference in the judiciary.

Hearings resumed in Sidi M’hamed court, the main jurisdiction in Algiers, an AFP journalist said, while in second city Oran, some 350 kilometres west of the capital, lawyer Wafa Boukadoum said judges were also back at work.

Algerian judges and prosecutors had begun an open-ended strike on October 27, demanding independence for the judiciary after a massive reshuffle affecting 3,000 judges and prosecutors.

At the time, the National Magistrates’ Syndicate (SNM) decried the transfers by the justice ministry as “a stranglehold by the executive over the power of the judiciary”.

But the SNM said an agreement had been reached with the ministry on Tuesday that would allow judges to challenge their transfers by filing appeals to the supreme judicial council.

It also said the deal involved setting up a workshop to “enrich” legislation on judicial independence.

But in Sidi M’hamed, lawyers told AFP they were disappointed by the decision to end the strike. One alleged that judges had been swayed by a promise of “huge wage increases”.

“They have sacrificed the independence” of the judiciary, the lawyer added, on condition of anonymity.

Judges play a major role in overseeing elections in the north African country, which has been rocked by anti-government protests since February.

The protests, initially against president Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s bid for a fifth term, forced the veteran leader to quit in April, but demonstrators have continued to demand sweeping reforms and reject a December poll to select Bouteflika’s successor.