Iran and weapons of mass destruction

Iran temporarily closed its nuclear facilities over "security considerations" in the wake of its massive missile and drone attack on Israel over the weekend, the head of the U.N.'s atomic watchdog said Monday.

Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to nearly weapons-grade levels, according to a report by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog seen by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The UN nuclear watchdog said Monday it regretted that "no progress" had been made by Iran on outstanding issues, including reinstalling cameras to monitor Tehran's nuclear programme and explaining uranium traces.

U.S. Research Center Heritage Foundation expressed this warning, amid growing concern over the "hysterical rhetoric" of the Kremlin.
A new report published by a think tank highlights the growing risk that the Russian president will "make one of the most fateful decisions of the century" in the face of his "failed invasion of Ukraine".

A top Iranian diplomat insisted Wednesday that the Islamic republic was willing to cooperate over its atomic programme, even as western powers slammed a "dangerous nuclear escalation".

Iranian officials said drones struck a munitions manufacturing facility in the central Iranian city of Isfahan overnight in what U.S. officials on Sunday said was an Israeli operation, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Washington on Thursday warned Russia against diverting energy from a nuclear plant Kiev says was cut off from its grid, as calls for an independent inspection of the facility mount.

Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is under occupation by Moscow's troops and was disconnected from the national power supply on Thursday, the state energy operator said.

"The disappearance of the agreement between Washington and Moscow on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 2026 with the subsequent increase in nuclear weapons will open a Pandora's Box - non-nuclear countries will want to acquire nuclear weapons," the chairman of the Conference for the Review of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Gustavo Zlauvinen, told

Iran condemned as "not fair" Tuesday a report by the UN nuclear watchdog on traces of nuclear material found at three undeclared sites.

The comments came with talks deadlocked since March on reviving a 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers.

Iran has begun the process of producing enriched uranium metal, the U.N. atomic watchdog said on July 6, a move that could help it develop a nuclear weapon and that three European powers said threatened talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.