Jonathan Tirone | Bloomberg
Iran’s top nuclear official warned of chaos if diplomats convened by the United Nations atomic watchdog block a motion to censure Israeli and US military attacks on the Islamic Republic in June. The Persian Gulf nation is circulating a resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency annual general conference, which would declare that the targeting of nuclear facilities during the 12-day war a violation of international law, according to Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
Anton Sokolin | NK News
North Korea lashed out at the U.S. and the U.N. nuclear watchdog over their push for Pyongyang’s denuclearization on Monday, insisting its nuclear status is “irreversible” after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) raised concerns about continuing enrichment activity. In a press statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the DPRK mission in Vienna accused Washington of a “grave political provocation” for calling its nuclear access “illegal” and repeating its “anachronistic denuclearization assertion.”
Andrew Osborn and Mark Trevelyan | Reuters
Russia and Belarus are rehearsing the launch of Russian tactical nuclear weapons as part of joint war games, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday… The Belarusian Defence Ministry confirmed in a statement that the use of tactical nuclear weapons had been rehearsed along with the deployment of Russia's intermediate-range Oreshnik ballistic missile that Moscow fired at Ukraine for the first time on November 21 last year.
Kim Tong-Hyung | AP News
The United States, South Korea and Japan opened an air and naval exercise off a South Korean island Monday in their latest joint drill condemned by North Korea as a “reckless show of strength.” The exercise called Freedom Edge is aimed at strengthening the countries’ combined operational capabilities in the sea, air and cyberspace and is necessary to counter North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said.
Stanley Reed | The New York Times
Britain and the United States are expected to sign an agreement this week to help companies from one country to build nuclear projects in the other. The British government is hopeful that reaching a deal with the United States will speed up what has, so far, been a halting effort to build nuclear plants in Britain. “Together with the U.S., we are building a golden age of nuclear,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement on Monday.
Pierre Goldschmidt | Foundation Pour la Recherche Stratégique
Today, Iran’s leadership would not lose face but on the contrary show its sense of responsibility towards its people and the world if it decided to dismantle all uranium enrichment capacity and to “suspend” all enrichment-related activity as long as a number of UNSC sanctions are lifted and provided there is no disruption in the fuel supply for its electrical nuclear power plants… Whatever happens… it is high time that the UNSC adopts a generic and legally binding resolution defining the conditions that a Non-Nuclear Weapon State must meet in order to have a uranium enrichment or spent fuel reprocessing plant on its territory (or under its control).