The Jim Bakker Show

Chemical arms watchdog wins right to assign blame for attacks

By Anthony Deutsch

THE HAGUE (Reuters) – The world’s chemical weapons watchdog won new powers on Wednesday to assign blame for attacks with banned toxic munitions, a diplomatic victory for Britain just months after a former Russian spy was poisoned on its territory.

In a special session, member states of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) voted in favor of a British-led proposal by a 82-24 margin, easily reaching the two-thirds majority needed for it to succeed.

The motion was supported by the United States and European Union, but opposed by Russia, Iran, Syria and their allies.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the vote would empower the OPCW “not just to identify the use of chemical weapons but also the to point the finger at the organization, the state that they think is responsible.”

“That’s crucial if we are going to deter the use of these vile weapons.”

Russia said that the vote called the future of the organization itself into question.

“The OPCW is a Titanic which is leaking and has started to sink,” Industry Minister Georgy Kalamanov told reporters.

“A lot of the countries that voted against the measure are starting to think about how the organization will exist and function in the future,” he told reporters.

Though the use of chemical weapons is illegal under international law, the taboo on deploying them has been eroding after their repeated use in the Syrian civil war, but also in Iraq, Malaysia and Britain since 2012.

The poisoning of the Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England in March led to tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats by Moscow and the West and was one reason for Britain’s push to strengthen the OPCW. Russia has denied any involvement in their poisoning.

From 2015 to 2017 a joint United Nations-OPCW team had been appointed to assign blame for chemical attacks in Syria. It found that Syrian government troops used nerve agent sarin and chorine barrel bombs on several occasions, while Islamic State militants were found to have used sulfur mustard.

But at a deadlocked U.N. Security Council, the joint team was disbanded last year after Moscow used its veto to block several resolutions seeking to renew its mandate.

The British proposal declares the OPCW will be empowered to attribute blame for attacks, though details of how it will do so will still need to be further defined by the organizations’ members.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch. Additional reporting by Toby Sterling, Editing by Jon Boyle)

U.S. pulls funding for U.N. counterterrorism office headed by Russian

The United Nations building is seen during the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United States cut a planned $2 million pledge for the United Nations Counterterrorism Office on Wednesday and downgraded its presence at a conference on the issue, the latest move by the Trump administration to wield its funding to push for reform of the world body.

The funding cut was made over a decision by the U.N. counterterrorism chief, a former Russian diplomat with more than 30 years service, to close part of an inaugural conference to nongovernmental interest groups, a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said.

When asked if the decision had anything to do with counterterrorism chief Vladimir Voronkov being Russian, the U.S. official said “it matters” and that Voronkov had come under “tremendous pressure by his home country” on the conference.

Voronkov’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government has been accused by Western countries of cracking down on interest groups known as “civil society” and discouraging independent institutions.

The U.S. official said the United States and other countries had pushed U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Voronkov, who was appointed a year ago, to include the groups in the whole conference because they have valuable contributions to make.

“Our entreaties seem to have fallen on deaf ears and instead the views of countries like Syria, Venezuela, Iran and Russia seem to have more weight on this matter than do the countries that do the most on counterterrorism,” the U.S. official said.

The U.S. stance on the one-year old office is the latest salvo in the Trump administration’s push for change at the United Nations. Last week, the United States withdrew from the U.N. Human Rights Council over what it saw as the body’s bias against Israel and a lack of reform.

Two sessions at the conference’s opening day on Thursday – on the sharing of information and expertise and combating foreign fighters – will be closed to interest groups and media.

A senior U.N. official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the reason for closing the sessions was the expectation of “a lot of sensitive information shared between the heads of counterterrorism agencies.”

The U.S. official said Washington has downgraded its representation at the two-day conference to an acting deputy coordinator in the State Department Bureau of Counterterrorism, instead of a possible ministerial level official.

Nearly 120 countries were expected to attend, along with 100 civil society groups, the U.N. official said. Close to 75 percent of delegations would be led by heads or deputy heads of counterterrorism agencies or interior ministers, the official said.

(This version of the story corrects day conference opens to Thursday)

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool)

Exclusive: Ukraine says Russia hackers laying groundwork for massive strike

A message demanding money is seen on a monitor of a payment terminal at a branch of Ukraine's state-owned bank Oschadbank after Ukrainian institutions were hit by cyber attacks, in Kiev, Ukraine June 27, 2017. Picture taken June 27, 2017. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

By Pavel Polityuk

KIEV (Reuters) – Hackers from Russia are infecting Ukrainian companies with malware to create so-called ‘back doors’ for a large coordinated attack, Ukraine’s cyber police chief told Reuters on Tuesday, almost a year after a strike on Ukraine spread around the world.

Affected companies range across various industries, such as banks or energy infrastructure. The pattern of the malware being rolled out suggests the people behind it want to activate it on a particular day, Serhiy Demedyuk said.

Demedyuk said his staff were cooperating with foreign agencies to track the hackers, without naming the agencies.

Police had identified viruses designed to hit Ukraine since the start of the year, including phishing emails sent from legitimate domains of state institutions whose systems were hacked, or a fake webpage mimicking that of a real state body.

They had intercepted hackers sending malware from different sources and broken into various components so as to remain undetected by antivirus software until activated as a single unit, Demedyuk said.

“Analysis of the malicious software that has already been identified and the targeting of attacks on Ukraine suggest that this is all being done for a specific day,” he said.

Relations between Ukraine and Russia plunged following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and Kiev has accused Russia of orchestrating large-scale cyber attacks as part of a “hybrid war” against Ukraine, which Moscow repeatedly denies.

Some attacks coincided with major Ukrainian holidays and Demedyuk said another strike could be launched on Thursday — Constitution Day — or on Independence Day in August.

On June 27 last year, the country was hit by a massive strike known as “NotPetya”, which knocked out Ukrainian IT systems before spreading around the world. The United States and Britain joined Ukraine in blaming Russia for the attack.

Demedyuk said the scale of the latest detected preparations was the same as NotPetya.

“This is support on a government level – very expensive and very synchronized. Without the help of government bodies it would not be possible. We’re talking now about the Russian Federation,” he said.

“Everything we’re seeing, everything we’ve intercepted in this period: 99 percent of the traces come from Russia.”

The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ukraine is better prepared to withstand such attacks thanks to cooperation with foreign allies since the NotPetya strike, Demedyuk said. Ukraine has received support from the U.S., Britain and NATO among others to beef up its cyber defenses.

But Demedyuk said some Ukrainian companies had not bothered to clean their computers after NotPetya struck, leaving machines still infected by the virus and vulnerable to being used for another attack.

“We are sounding the alarm to remind people – come to your senses, check your equipment,” he said. “It’s better to be on the safe side than clean up a mess like last time.”

He also appealed to global companies who were hit by NotPetya, including U.S. and European firms in Ukraine, to share details of their investigations and steps to localize the hack.

“They have a huge amount of very interesting evidence, which they store themselves. We would like it if they weren’t scared and approached us.”

(Additional reporting by Margarita Popova in Moscow; writing by Matthias Williams; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Syrian military extends southwest assault, thousands displaced

Smoke rises from al-Harak town, as seen from Deraa countryside, Syria June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Alaa al-Faqir

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Government helicopters dropped barrel bombs on Deraa city for the first time in nearly a year on Monday, a rebel and a war monitor said, extending an assault in southwest Syria which has driven thousands from their homes.

Along with the barrels crammed with explosives, the helicopters dropped leaflets saying the army was coming and urging people to “kick out the terrorists as your brothers did in eastern Ghouta”, the sources said.

“My wife and I left with only the clothes on our backs, because the house was completely destroyed,” Muhammad Abu Qasim, 45, told Reuters. Heavy bombing had turned his village northeast of Deraa into “an unbearable hell”.

The region is politically sensitive because of its proximity to Israel and Jordan and because of a “de-escalation” deal there agreed between the United States, Jordan and Syrian government ally Russia.

Washington had warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies that violations of the ceasefire would prompt a response, but rebels said the United States had told them not to expect any American military support.

A European diplomat told Reuters the violation of the de-escalation agreement by Russia and Syria was “deeply troubling”.

“No one is in any doubt about the likely military outcome from this uneven clash, but the consequences could be significant. It not only risks a significant humanitarian crisis, but is likely to destabilize further an already precarious situation. It also casts real doubt about Russia’s willingness to stand by its own commitments,” he said.

The fighting has displaced thousands of people and threatens to uproot many more from their homes, adding to the around 6.5 million people already internally displaced by Syria’s seven-year-old conflict.

After fleeing her home many times since the start of war, 30-year-old widow Um Muhammad has once again been forced to move with her three children, and is now sheltering in a school deeper inside rebel territory in southwest Syria.

“Each of us took only our clothes. Right now there’s bombardment everywhere,” she told Reuters.

In Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov was quoted by RIA news agency as saying Russian officials hoped to discuss southwest Syria with U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton soon, and separately with Jordan.

Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi said on Twitter on Sunday his country, already hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees, could not take in Syrians fleeing fighting in the southwest and demanded the de-escalation agreement be respected.

BIRTHPLACE OF UPRISING

Assad has turned to the southwest after driving rebels from their last besieged enclaves in western Syria, including eastern Ghouta near Damascus, earlier this year.

It is one of two major areas still held by rebel factions, along with Idlib province on the border with Turkey in the northwest. Deraa, the southwest’s largest city, was an early center of the uprising against Assad in 2011 and has been split into rebel and government sectors for years.

Recent fighting has focused on the town of Busra al-Harir, half way along a narrow rebel salient stretching into government areas northeast of Deraa. If taken, it would split that salient in half, putting the northern part under siege.

The pro-government al-Watan newspaper reported on Monday that the army had advanced into Busra al-Harir.

The UK-based war monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported fierce fighting inside the town between the army, along with allied militia, and insurgents.

But Abu Shaima, spokesman for a central operations room for rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), said the insurgents had foiled attempts to advance.

Abu Bakr al-Hassan, spokesman for the FSA rebel group Jaish al-Thawra, said Russian planes were carrying out heavy air strikes to support the strong Busra al-Harir offensive.

On Sunday an air strike hit a medical center in Busra al-Harir, causing extensive damage but no casualties, said the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations, a charity that works in opposition parts of Syria.

The bombardment has killed about 30 people since it began on June 19, the Observatory reported.

The Syrian military said in a statement on state media on Monday it was committed to protecting civilians in the area.

Russia also said on Monday it had helped the army repel an insurgent attack in the southwest, killing 70 rebel fighters. Syrian state media reported that rebels shelled the nearby city of Sweida.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall and Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova in Moscow and Tom Miles in Geneva; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Syria’s Assad defies U.S., presses southwest assault

People ride in a truck loaded with belongings in Deraa countryside, Syria June 22, 2018. REUTERS/Alaa al-Faqir

By Angus McDowall and Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government helicopters dropped barrel bombs on opposition areas of the southwest on Friday for the first time in a year, a war monitor and rebel officials said, in defiance of U.S. demands that President Bashar al-Assad halt the assault.

Assad has sworn to recapture the area bordering Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and the army began ramping up an assault there this week, threatening a “de-escalation” zone agreed by the United States and Russia last year.

The United States on Thursday reiterated its demand that the zone be respected, warning Assad and his Russian allies of “serious repercussions” of violations. It accused Damascus of initiating air strikes, artillery and rocket attacks.

A big offensive risks a wider escalation that could draw the United States deeper into the war. The southwest is of strategic concern to U.S.-allied Israel, which has this year stepped up attacks on Iran-backed militia allied to Assad.

The barrel bombs targeted a cluster of rebel-held towns including Busra al-Harir northeast of Deraa city, where the government attack threatens to bisect a finger of rebel ground jutting northwards into land held by the government.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said Syrian government helicopters had dropped more than 12 barrel bombs on the area, causing damage but no deaths.

Abu Bakr al-Hassan, spokesman for the rebel group Jaish al-Thawra, which fights under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), said the munitions had been dropped on three towns and villages, and that war planes had hit another.

“I believe (the bombardment) is testing two things: the steadfastness of the FSA fighters and the degree of U.S. commitment to the de-escalation agreement in the south,” he told Reuters.

Syrian state television said on Friday that army units had targeted “lairs and movements of terrorists” in the area.

While government forces have made heavy use of artillery and rockets in the assault, they have yet to draw on the kind of air power that was critical to the recovery of other rebel-held areas. Russian warplanes have yet to take part, rebels say.

Still, Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon was quoted as saying that Russia was helping Damascus to recover the south.

“We say that the Syrian army now, with support from Russian forces, is recovering its land in the south and restoring the authority of the Syrian state,” Alexander Zasypkin told the pro-Hezbollah newspaper al-Akhbar.

“Israel has no justification to carry out any action that obstructs the fight against terrorism,” he added.

Children ride on a truck with belongings in Deraa countryside, Syria June 22, 2018. REUTERS/Alaa al-Faqir

HOSTILE FORCE

A rebel commander in the south accused Iran of trying to torpedo the de-escalation agreement and vowed fierce resistance. “We possess many weapons,” said Colonel Nassim Abu Arra, commander of the Youth of Sunna Forces group.

Rebels in the southwest have received support including arms from Assad’s foreign foes during the seven-year-long war.

Analysts of the conflict believe this support continued even after U.S. President Donald Trump decided last year to shut down a military aid program run by the Central Intelligence Agency, though it may have been scaled back.

Assad has this year recaptured the last remaining enclaves of insurgent territory near the capital Damascus and the city of Homs, including the densely populated eastern Ghouta region.

But there are still large areas outside his control. Apart from the southwest, the rebels also hold a swathe of northwest Syria. Insurgent groups backed by Turkey hold parts of the northern border area.

And the quarter of Syria east of the Euphrates is controlled by an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias supported by the United States. The United States also has a base at Tanf, near Syria’s borders with Iraq and Jordan, which controls the Damascus-Baghdad highway.

On Thursday a commander in the regional alliance backing Assad said a U.S. strike had killed a Syrian army officer near Tanf. However, the Pentagon said a U.S.-backed Syrian rebel group had engaged “an unidentified hostile force” near Tanf, without casualties on either side.

The Syrian government has denied using barrel bombs, containers filled with explosive material that are dropped from helicopters and which cannot be accurately aimed. However, United Nations investigators have extensively documented its use of them during the conflict.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall and Tom Perry; Editing by William Maclean and Mark Potter)

Syrian army steps up attacks in southwest, Jordan concerned

FILE PHOTO: Men inspect a damaged house in Busra al-Harir town, near Deraa, Syria March 13, 2018. REUTERS/Alaa al-Faqir/File Photo

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) – The Syrian army stepped up shelling of opposition-held parts of the southwest as it mobilizes for a campaign to regain the area bordering Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, opposition sources said.

Violence erupted at the frontline town of Kafr Shams, near the Syrian-held Golan Heights, and further east in the town of Busra al Harir, which was struck by dozens of mortars from nearby army positions, the sources said.

Syrian state media said militants had escalated attacks on civilians in the area which is part of a “de-escalation” zone agreed by the United States and Russia last year with the aim of containing the conflict in the southwest.

An offensive in the southwest would risk a major escalation of the seven-year-old war. The area is of strategic importance to Israel, which is deeply alarmed by Iranian influence in Syria. Washington has warned it will take “firm and appropriate measures” in response to violations of the “de-escalation” deal.

U.S.-allied Jordan is increasingly worried about a spillover of violence and has been engaged in stepped up diplomatic efforts to preserve the de-escalation zone which it also helped to broker last year, a Jordanian source said.

Rebels say Iranian-backed fighters allied to President Bashar al-Assad have boosted their numbers in the area, though a commander in the regional alliance fighting in support of Assad denied Tehran-aligned forces had a big presence there.

Elite government troops known as the “Tiger” force, which have spearheaded a campaign that recaptured the Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus, have also been mobilized for the attack.

The pro-Damascus newspaper al-Watan said there were “growing indications about preparations for the start of a wide military operation to liberate” the south.

HIT AND RUN ATTACKS

Assad said earlier this month the government, at Russia’s suggestion, was seeking to strike a deal in the southwest similar to agreements that have restored its control of other areas through withdrawals of rebel forces.

But he also said there had been no results yet and blamed “Israeli and American interference”. He said the territory would be recovered by force if necessary.

One major objective for the government is recapturing the border crossing with Jordan that served before the conflict as a vital trade gateway for goods moving across the region. Its closure has hit both the Syrian and Jordanian economies hard.

Rebels say elite army troops backed by Iranian-backed local militias have been escalating hit and run attacks on their posts in a so-called “Triangle of Death”, which connects southern Damascus countryside with Deraa and Quneitra provinces.

A rebel commander said a bomb injured several fighters in Naba al Sakr town, saying it was one of a growing number of such attacks blamed on Iranian-backed militias in the area.

“They are moving more reinforcements and there have been several infiltration attempts which we have so far repelled,” said Abu Ayham, a rebel commander in the Salah al Din brigades operating in Quneitra.

Residents and opposition sources say that in the few days they saw larger movements of troops with armored vehicles and tanks along two main highways that cut through rebel areas.

The last two days have seen wider skirmishes, an air strike and rebel ambushes along two main highways being used by the army to reinforce the city of Deraa, which is split into areas controlled separately by the government and rebels.

The army and rebels have also been exchanging gun fire and shelling in a frontline in Deraa city.

Employees and hospital staff in two government hospitals in Sweida and Deraa provinces have also been put on high alert, according to a resident contacted by phone from Deraa city.

(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut; Writing by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Tom Perry, William Maclean)

Syrian rebel warns of ‘volcanoes of fire’ if Assad attacks south

FILE PHOTO: A fighter from the Free Syrian Army is seen in Yadouda area in Deraa, Syria May 29, 2018. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Faqir/File Photo

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces and their Iran-backed allies will face “volcanoes of fire” if they launch a threatened offensive in the opposition-held southwest, a rebel commander told Reuters on Tuesday.

Syria’s southwest has come into focus since President Bashar al-Assad and his allies crushed the last remaining rebel pockets near Damascus and Homs.

Assad has vowed to recover opposition-held areas near the frontiers with Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and government and allied forces are mobilizing. A major flareup there risks escalating the seven-year-long war that has killed an estimated half a million people.

Violence flared in several parts of the southwest on Tuesday, with government warplanes launching air strikes near a rebel-held village. But there was no sign yet of the start of the big offensive threatened by the government, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.

The United States last week warned it would take “firm and appropriate measures” in response to Syrian government violations of a “de-escalation” agreement that it underwrote with Russia last year to contain the conflict in the southwest.

“Everyone is on guard. We are still committed to the de-escalation agreement but if the regime launches any attack on any sector of the south, it will be faced by volcanoes of fire,” Nassim Abu Arra, commander of one of the main Free Syrian Army groups in southern Syria, the Youth of Sunna Forces, said.

Rebels attacked a military convoy bringing reinforcements overnight in the Khirbat Ghazala area, igniting clashes between midnight and 2 a.m., he said.

The air strikes near al-Masika village were a response to a separate rebel attack that destroyed a tank, he added.

Syria’s state-run Ikhbariya television said a child was killed in an insurgent missile attack in the same area. State news agency SANA said rebel shells had also fallen on Deraa city, killing one girl overnight, and on Sweida city, causing material damage.

Families fled the rebel-held town of Busra al-Harir, fearing it could be targeted, activists said.

“NO SURRENDER”

The conflict in the southwest has been complicated by the role of Iran-backed forces and Israeli demands for them to kept away from the occupied Golan Heights and, more widely, to be removed from Syria entirely.

But he also said there had been no results yet and blamed “Israeli and American interference”. He said the territory would be recovered by force if necessary.

Abu Arra said the reinforcements arriving in the southwest aimed to put pressure on rebels to succumb to government demands such as accepting “reconcilation” deals, or to surrender strategic positions including the Nassib crossing with Jordan.

“But we have made up our minds. There will be no retreat from the principles of the revolution or surrender of a single inch of the Syrian south,” he said.

On Tuesday the Israeli military said that a tactical Sklyark drone was lost along its “northern border” but did not say exactly where it fell. It said there was no risk of its finders gleaning any information.

A military news outlet run by Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, which supports Assad militarily in Syria, said a drone fell in the government-held Syrian town of Hader near the Golan Heights frontier.

Israel has lost a number of the hand-launched drones in the past in the Gaza Strip and media reported last year that one fell in Lebanon. They are used mainly for short-range surveillance.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Andrew Heavens, William Maclean and Peter Graff)

Norway to invite more U.S. Marines, for longer and closer to Russia

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Marines, who are to attend a six-month training to learn about winter warfare, arrive in Stjordal, Norway January 16, 2017. NTB Scanpix/Ned Alley/via REUTERS/File Photo

By Gwladys Fouche

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway will ask the United States to more than double the number of U.S. Marines stationed in the country in a move that could raise tensions with its eastern neighbor Russia.

The government in Oslo has grown increasingly concerned about Russia following its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Some 330 U.S. Marines were scheduled to leave Norway at the end of this year after an initial contingent arrived in January 2017 to train for fighting in winter conditions. They are the first foreign troops to be stationed in Norway, a member of NATO, since World War Two.

The initial decision to welcome the Marines irked Russia and Moscow said it would worsen bilateral relations and escalate tensions on NATO’s northern flank.

Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide told reporters the decision did not constitute the establishment of a permanent U.S. base in Norway and was not targeted at Russia.

“There are no American bases on Norwegian soil,” she said, adding the decision had broad parliamentary support.

Oslo will ask Washington to send 700 Marines from 2019, compared with 330 presently. The additional numbers will be based closer to the border with Russia in the Inner Troms region in the Norwegian Arctic, rather than in central Norway.

The rotation of forces will last for a five-year period compared with an initial posting that ran for six months from the start of 2017, and then was extended last June.

In addition the U.S. want to build infrastructure that could accommodate up to four U.S. fighter jets at a base 65 km (40 miles) south of Oslo, as part of a European deterrence initiative launched after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Norway said the expanded invitation was about NATO training and improving winter fighting capability.

“Allies get better at training together,” Defence Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen told reporters.

Soereide told Reuters in April that Oslo did not see Moscow as a military threat and that the threat of war in the Arctic, NATO’s northern flank, was “low”.

But she said Oslo saw challenges in the way Russia was developing, not only militarily but also in the areas of civil society, the rule of law and democracy.

The Russian embassy in Oslo was not available for comment.

(Additional reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; Editing by Terje Solsvik and Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Iran stands ground on nuclear inspections as France warns of red line

The flag of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) flutters in front of their headquarters in Vienna, Austria June 4, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

By Francois Murphy and Sudip Kar-Gupta

VIENNA/PARIS (Reuters) – Iran will not cooperate more fully with atomic inspectors until a standoff over its nuclear deal is resolved, its U.N. envoy said, as one signatory warned Tehran against moving ahead with preparations to boost its uranium enrichment capacity.

Tehran meanwhile signaled its resolve to expand its enrichment capability by detailing plans to build advanced centrifuges – the machines that enrich uranium.

European powers have been scrambling to salvage the agreement they signed in 2015 since U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out last month and said he would reimpose far-reaching U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Foreign and finance ministers from those three countries – France, Britain and Germany – have written to U.S. officials to stress their commitment to upholding the pact, and to urge Washington to spare EU firms active in Iran from secondary sanctions.

An Iranian withdrawal from the deal, which lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, would “further unsettle a region where additional conflicts would be disastrous,” the ministers wrote in the letter dated June 4 and seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

Since the U.S. pullout was announced, authorities in Tehran have sent mixed signals on whether they believe the nuclear deal’s remaining signatories, which also include China and Russia, can salvage it.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said on Monday he had ordered preparations to increase uranium enrichment capacity if the agreement collapsed.

Tehran also informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog that polices restrictions placed on its activities under the deal, of “tentative” plans to produce the feedstock for centrifuges.

In Paris on Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Yves Le Drian told Europe 1 radio that, while that initiative remained within the framework of the nuclear deal, it was unwelcome and risked sailing close to a “red line”.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Twitter that Washington was aware of reports Iran plans to increase its uranium enrichment and he vowed not to allow Tehran to develop a nuclear weapon. “Iran is aware of our resolve,” he said.

Emphasizing that Tehran’s patience with European efforts to save the deal was not unlimited, its envoy to the IAEA said it had granted the three powers a few weeks.

“A few weeks means a few weeks, not a few months,” Reza Najafi said outside a quarterly meeting of the agency’s Board of Governors in Vienna.

STANDOFF

He also dismissed calls by the IAEA to go the extra mile in cooperating with the nuclear watchdog’s inspectors, telling reporters that, while the standoff over the deal continued, “no one should expect Iran to go to implement more voluntary measures.”

“But I should emphasize that it does not mean that right now Iran will restart any activities contrary to the (deal),” Najafi added. “These are only preparatory works.”

Iran’s nuclear chief on Wednesday inaugurated work on a facility in Natanz plant in central Iran designed to build advanced centrifuges and said the center would be fully functional in a month.

“After the supreme leader’s order we prepared this center within 48 hours. We hope the facility to be completed in a month,” Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said on state television.

Although the move was not a violation of the nuclear deal, it sent a strong signal to the West that Tehran would not succumb to the pressures.

Answering a question about a remark by Pompeo last month that Iran must halt all uranium enrichment, Salehi said: “We are far beyond that point. That man has been talking for himself.”

The agency has said Tehran is implementing its commitments, but also called for “timely and proactive cooperation” on providing access for snap inspections.

Diplomats who deal with the agency say an inspection in late April went down to the wire in terms of how quickly the IAEA team gained access to one site.

(Additional reporting by Tom Koerkemeier in Berlin, Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London and Eric Beech in Washington; writing by John Stonestreet; editing by William Maclean and James Dalgleish)

Exclusive: In Syria, a Russian move causes friction with Iran-backed forces – officials

Russian military vehicles are seen in eastern Ghouta near Douma, in Damascus, Syria April 23, 2018. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

By Laila Bassam and Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Russian troop deployment in Syria near the Lebanese border this week caused friction with Iran-backed forces including Hezbollah which objected to the uncoordinated move, two non-Syrian officials in the regional alliance backing Damascus said.

The situation was resolved on Tuesday when Syrian army soldiers took over three positions where the Russians had deployed near the town of Qusair in the Homs region on Monday, one of the officials, a military commander, told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

It appeared to be a rare case of Russia acting out of sync with President Bashar al-Assad’s Iran-backed allies in the war. Iranian and Russian support has been critical to Assad’s war effort.

“It was an uncoordinated step,” said the commander. “Now it is resolved. We rejected the step. The Syrian army – Division 11 – is deploying at the border,” said the commander, adding Hezbollah fighters were still located in the area.

There was no comment from the Russian military about the incident. Russia has faced calls from Israel to rein in Iran in Syria, where Israel has mounted numerous attacks against Hezbollah and other targets it has described as Iran-backed.

“Perhaps it was to assure the Israelis,” said the commander, adding that the move could not be justified as part of the fight against the Nusra Front or Islamic State because Hezbollah and the Syrian army had defeated them at the Lebanese-Syrian border.

The second official said the “resistance axis” – a reference to Iran and its allies – was “studying the situation” after the uncoordinated Russian move.

Russia and Iran-backed forces such as Hezbollah have worked together against the insurgency. Hezbollah deployed to Syria in 2012. The Russian air force arrived in 2015 in support of Assad.

But their different agendas in Syria have become more apparent of late as Israel presses Russia to make sure Iran and its allies do not entrench their military sway in the country.

TURNING POINT

Israel wants Iranian and Iran-backed forces kept away from its border and, more broadly, removed from Syria entirely.

Last month, Israel said Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched a missile salvo from Syria into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said it marked a “new phase” of the war in Syria.

Recent Russian calls for all non-Syrian forces to leave southern Syria have been seen aimed partly at Iran, in addition to U.S. forces based in the Tanf area at the Syrian-Iraqi border.

The town of Qusair was the scene of a major battle in the Syrian civil war in 2013, when Hezbollah fighters played a major part in turning the tide of the conflict in Assad’s favor by defeating rebels.

Some details of the Qusair incident were reported by the Lebanese TV station al-Mayadeen, which is close to Damascus and its regional allies such as Hezbollah. It said the number of Russian forces was small.

A military air base in the same area came under missile attack on May 24. The Israeli military declined to comment on that attack.

Syrian rebel-held areas of southwestern Syria at the frontier with Israel have come into focus since Damascus and its allies crushed the last remaining besieged rebel pockets near the capital. Assad has vowed to recover all Syrian territory.

The United States wants to preserve a “de-escalation” zone that has contained the conflict in southwestern Syria. The zone, agreed last year with Russia and Jordan, has helped to contain fighting in areas near the Israeli frontier.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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