US President Donald Trump says he will withdraw the US from an Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran. Calling it “decaying and rotten”, he said the deal was “an embarrassment” to him “as a citizen”. Going against advice from European allies, he said he would reimpose economic sanctions that were waived when the deal was signed in 2015. In response, Iran said it was preparing to restart uranium enrichment, key for making both nuclear energy and weapons. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said: “The US has announced that it doesn’t respect its commitments. “I have ordered the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran to be ready for action if needed, so that if necessary we can resume our enrichment on an industrial level without any limitations.” He said he would “wait a few weeks” to speak to allies and the other signatories to the nuclear deal first.
BBC 9th May 2018 read more »
We cannot yet know what chaos Donald Trump’s decision on the nuclear deal with Iran will unleash in the Middle East and in global affairs at large – but we do know that truth is the first casualty of war. Years ago, the person who made me most aware of the meaning of that expression was a Finn, Olli Heinonen, who was at the time the head of the international inspectors surveying Iran’s nuclear programme. A calm, sturdy man under intense pressure, Heinonen would sit down with me in the cafeteria of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. We’d sip glasses of wine while he explained some of the conclusions of his team’s reports, which I was writing articles about.
Guardian 8th May 2018 read more »
