Iran Officially Imposes Curbs on UN Nuclear Inspections
Nasser Karimi and Kiyoko Metzler | AP
Iran officially started restricting international inspections of its nuclear facilities Tuesday, a bid to pressure European countries and President Joe Biden’s administration to lift crippling economic sanctions and restore the 2015 nuclear deal. World powers slammed the restrictions as a “dangerous” move. It came as the International Atomic Energy Agency reported in a confidential document distributed to member countries and seen by The Associated Press that Iran had added 17.6 kilograms (38.8 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 20% to its stockpile as of Feb. 16.
Iran’s Nuclear Program and Regional Behavior Should be Dealt With Separately, Israel Tells U.S.
Barak Ravid | Axios
Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat told his U.S. counterpart Jake Sullivan in a secure video call two weeks ago that Israel thinks Iran's nuclear program should be dealt with separately from its regional activity in future negotiations, two sources briefed on the call tell me. While many critics of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal note that it did nothing to curtail Iran's aggression in the region, Israel is concerned that linking the two issues will give American and European negotiators incentives to compromise on limitations to Iran's nuclear program. The Biden administration says it'll return the U.S. to the 2015 nuclear deal by lifting sanctions if Iran returns to compliance by reversing its recent nuclear steps.
New Hicks Memo Sets Acquisition, Force Posture 2022 Budget Priorities
Paul McLeary | Breaking Defense
The Pentagon will focus on shipbuilding, low-yield nuclear weapons, Central Command funding and force posture and building capacity in the Pacific as it rushes to write its 2022 budget, a memo obtained by Breaking Defense says. The Feb. 17 memo by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks underscores the urgency with which the department has to move not only on some major acquisition programs, but also efforts to rethink the US force posture in an era where defense budgets are expected to be flat at best. In the memo, Hicks wrote that “due to the limited amount of time available before the Department must submit its FY 2022 President’s Budget request, the process to re-evaluate existing decisions will focus on a very small number of issues with direct impact on FY 2022 and of critical importance to the President and the Secretary.
U.S. Missile Defense ‘Clearly Focused’ on N. Korea: Gen. Hyten
Byun Duk-kun | Yonhap News Agency
The United States' missile defense capability is “clearly” focused on North Korea and must continue to advance to meet evolving threats from the North, the vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday. Gen. John Hyten argued the North poses one of the most immediate threats to the U.S. in that the country has a real potential of using its weapons against the U.S. “Our national missile defense capability is clearly focused on North Korea right now, not on China, Russia and Iran,” the Air Force general told a webinar hosted by a Washington-based think tank, the Center for Strategic & International Studies. “We are starting to look hard at Iran because Iran continues to build missiles in a significant way and we have to be able to respond to that,” he added.
Address by Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, to the High Level Segment of the Conference on Disarmament
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
I appreciate the opportunity to address this authoritative forum. 2020 was a difficult year in all respects. It saw a growing destructive trend toward the collapse of the existing international arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation regimes, an increasing tension and lack of trust between UN Member States. Unfortunately, the United States continued taking steps to substitute some global “rules-based order” imposed by Washington for international law and the central role of the United Nations. After withdrawing from the JCPOA in 2018 and dismantling the INF Treaty in 2019, the United States decided, in 2020, to withdraw from the Treaty on Open Skies, thereby undermining international security.
U.S. to Support International Effort to set Rules of Behavior in Space
Sandra Erwin | Space News
The United States and allies are drafting language in support of an international effort to adopt rules of behavior in space, U.S. Space Command’s Maj. Gen. DeAnna Burt told SpaceNews. Burt is the commander of U.S. Space Command’s combined force space component at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. She said international momentum is building for the adoption of a binding set of rules to make space safer and sustainable. U.S. Space Command is taking a central role in this effort amid growing alarm about Russia’s anti-satellite weapon tests and concerns that the proliferation of satellites and debris is rapidly cluttering Earth orbit. Burt said a team of Defense and State Department officials is drafting language on the U.S. position on a resolution approved in December by the United Nations General Assembly which calls for “norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviors” in space.