(JNS) At press time, the United Nations Security Council was set to hold a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, March 12 to address Iran’s growing stockpile of highly enriched uranium, diplomats confirmed to Reuters on Monday.
Six member states requested the session—France, Greece, Panama, South Korea, Britain and the United States—amid rising concerns over Tehran’s nuclear activities.
Western diplomats said they would also press Iran to fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by providing necessary information about undeclared nuclear materials detected at multiple sites. Tehran had not yet commented on the planned meeting.
The IAEA has warned that Iran is rapidly enriching uranium to 60% purity—just short of the 90% needed for nuclear weapons. Western nations have argued that such high enrichment levels have no civilian justification and are unprecedented among non-nuclear states.
The Islamic Republic has upped its stockpile of near-weapons grade uranium, currently possessing enough to build six nuclear bombs, according to an IAEA report seen by Reuters last week.
Israel sees “eye to eye” with the Trump administration on the Iranian threat, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday.
“I only say that we are committed to Iran not being a nuclear power,” Smotrich said in response to a question from JNS at a meeting of his Religious Zionism Party’s Knesset faction. “The American president will decide how to do this.”
Israeli opposition head Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid Party) told JNS on Monday that “it is Israel’s goal to make sure that we prevent—in any possible way—Iran from becoming a nuclear power and maintaining and getting a nuclear bomb. … I mean both diplomatically and military efforts.”
Israel would “work with the Americans” on the matter, he added.
“We are following, of course, the letter [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump has sent to the supreme leader of Iran, [Ali] Khamenei, and we’ll keep on following it. But Israel is reserving the right to act on its own as well, in order to make sure that Iran does not become a nuclear power … because this will throw the Middle East into a new nuclear race and nobody wins,” he said.
Trump revealed on Friday that he had sent a letter to Khamenei, urging him to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Washington or face possible military action.
“I said: ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate, because it’s going to be a lot better for Iran,’” Trump said in an interview with the Fox Business Network channel. He said he sent the letter on Thursday.
