TEHRAN: Iran has begun injecting uranium gas into advanced centrifuges in violation of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, a spokesman said Saturday.

Behrouz Kamalvandi of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran made the remarks in a news conference carried on live television. He spoke from a podium with advanced centrifuges standing next to him.

Iran already has breached the stockpile and enrichment level limits set by the deal, while stressing it could quickly revert back to the terms of the accord, if Europe delivers the sanctions relief promised in return for curbing Tehran’s nuclear program.

US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper in a joint press conference with his French counterpart, meanwhile said, “I am not surprised that Iran has announced a violation of the nuclear agreement again.”

“We seek to push Iran to respect the nuclear deal,” French defense minister Florence Parly said.

The U.S. and European moves to strengthen security in the Gulf must be “complementary and well coordinated”, she added.

France has ruled out joining a U.S.-led coalition of countries protecting oil tankers and cargo ships from threats posed by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, but has pushed for a European alternative.

Kamalvandi warned that Europe had little time left to save the deal. President Donald Trump withdrew America from the accord over a year ago before imposing crippling trade sanctions on Iran.

“As far as the other side does not implement their commitments, they should not expect Iran to fulfill its commitments,” Kamalvandi said.

Kamalvandi said Iran had the ability to go beyond 20 percent enrichment of uranium. Analysts say 20 percent is just a short technical step away from 90 percent enrichment, which is weapons-grade level.

Kamalvandi warned several times in his comments that Iran was rapidly approaching a point that would mean a full withdrawal from the deal.

“Our stockpile is quickly increasing, we hope they will come to their senses,” he said.

However, he stressed that Iran would allow UN inspectors to continue to monitor sites in the country. A top official from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency was expected to meet with Iranian officials in Tehran on Sunday.

Tensions between Iran and the US have risen in recent months that have seen mysterious attacks on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, Iran shooting down a US military surveillance drone and other incidents across the wider Middle East.

DUBAI: Satellite images appear to show the once-detained Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya-1 near the Syrian port of Tartus, despite US efforts to seize the vessel.
Images obtained by The Associated Press early Saturday from Maxar Technologies showed the vessel there.
Iranian officials haven’t acknowledged the ship went to Syria. The ship turned off its Automatic Identification System late Monday.
The new images matched a black-and-white image earlier tweeted by John Bolton, the US national security adviser.
Bolton had tweeted: “Anyone who said the Adrian Darya-1 wasn’t headed to #Syria is in denial.”

Anyone who said the Adrian Darya-1 wasn’t headed to #Syria is in denial. Tehran thinks it’s more important to fund the murderous Assad regime than provide for its own people. We can talk, but #Iran’s not getting any sanctions relief until it stops lying and spreading terror! pic.twitter.com/saar05T8wt

— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) September 6, 2019

Authorities in Gibraltar had seized the ship in July over concerns it would break European Union sanctions on Syria. They later released it after they say they received a promise from Iran that the vessel wouldn’t go there.

MADRID: The number of migrants arriving by sea in Spain has plunged with Morocco stopping boat departures since signing lucrative agreements with Madrid and Brussels, experts say.
So far this year 15,683 migrants have arrived by sea, 45 percent down on the first eight months of 2018, according to Spanish interior ministry figures.
Spain became the main entry point for migrants seeking a better life in Europe in 2018 after Italy closed its ports and Greece began sending migrants back to Turkey under a 2016 agreement with the European Union (EU).
But that is no longer the case. The most used migrant sea route to Europe is once again from the eastern Mediterranean to Greece, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) says.
Moroccan authorities are stopping boats from setting sail to Spain “whereas before they let them leave,” said Jose Encinas of the AUGC Guardia Civil police association in the southern region of Andalusia where most migrants land.
A migration expert at an international organization, who asked not to be named, said: “Moroccan maritime police have deployed means at strategic spots, especially in the north” to curb migrant departures to Spain.
Eduard Soler, a North Africa geopolitics specialist at Barcelona think tank CIDOB said “Morocco has realized that the migration card is a very effective pressure tool.”
“Times when bilateral relations between Morocco and Spain were difficult have coincided with a rise in (migrant) arrivals in Spain and when they have improved there was a dramatic drop (in arrivals),” he added.
The arrival of migrant ships in Spain had soared in the six months before Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez took power in June 2018.
He promptly dispatched ministers to Rabat before visiting the Moroccan capital himself in November for talks with King Mohammed VI.
A state visit followed in February 2019 by Spain’s King Felipe VI abd 11 bilateral agreements were signed covering energy to cultural cooperation.
“There was then a radical drop in the number of migrant arrivals. This does not seem like chance. Morocco decided to change its policy” said Soler.
The number of migrant arrivals by sea fell to 936 in February 2019 from 4,104 in the previous month, IOM figures show.
“When Morocco wants more money, it opens the tap of immigration and when it receives money, it closes it,” said Encinas.
Spain in August approved 32 million euros ($35 million) to help Morocco control illegal migration.
In July, Madrid authorized spending 26 million euros to supply Morocco’s interior ministry with vehicles.
A renegotiated fisheries agreement between Morocco and the European Union — which was approved by the European Parliament in February on the eve of King Felipe’s state visit — has also warmed ties between Brussels and Rabat.
On a visit to Morocco on Wednesday, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska hailed the “police cooperation” between the two countries which had led to a “significant decrease” in migrant arrivals.
Within the EU, Madrid continues to highlight “Morocco’s crucial importance as a strategic partner for migration and other issues,” he added.
The EU gave Morocco 140 million euros last year to help manage migration.
“And that seems little,” Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said last week, before adding Europe should do more for Morocco.
While Madrid praises its cooperation with Rabat, human rights groups accuse Morocco of forcibly preventing migrants form boarding boats to Spain.

ISTANBUL: A prominent Turkish opposition official was sentenced by a court on Friday to nine years and eight months in prison for insulting the president and spreading terrorist propaganda, a lawmaker from the main opposition party said.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) said Canan Kaftancioglu, head of its Istanbul branch and one of the strongest opposition voices within the party, will not immediately go to jail pending appeals.
The indictment also accused Kaftancioglu of insulting the government and public servants, inciting hatred and enmity, mostly on the basis of tweets posted between 2012 and 2017.
Kaftancioglu played a significant role in municipal elections in Istanbul that saw the CHP take over the mayoralty, which had been held by President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party and its Islamist predecessors for the last 25 years.
Speaking outside Istanbul’s main courthouse following the verdict, Kaftancioglu said it would not silence her.
“Neither you all, nor I deserved this. If the court ruling is not in line with the law and is shaped by the wishes of the political power, it means there is no law in this country,” she told reporters.
“The cases opened are concluded not in the courtrooms but in the rooms of the (presidential) palace,” she added. A crowd of supporters chanted: “Shoulder to shoulder against fascism.”
The first session of Kaftancioglu’s trial took place five days after the CHP’s Ekrem Imamoglu won a re-run election for mayor of Istanbul in June.
Imamoglu said he was saddened by the verdict but believed it would be overturned by the appeals court.
Kati Piri, the European Parliament’s Turkey rapporteur, tweeted that the verdict was “surreal and outrageous,” adding, “Erdogan takes revenge for opposition’s election victory. Unacceptable!“
Turkey’s lira weakened to 5.7250 against the dollar from 5.70 when the court decision was announced.
The appeals court will deliver a verdict within six months and then the decision can be appealed with the Court of Cassation, Turkey’s highest appeals court, the CHP said.
Since her appointment last year as the CHP’s provincial head, Kaftancioglu has been heavily criticized by members of Erdogan’s AK Party.
Turkey’s judicial independence has been in the spotlight in recent years, especially since a crackdown on the judiciary and other state bodies after an abortive 2016 coup and the country’s switch to an executive presidency last year.
Critics say the courts are under pressure from Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted AK Party. The government has repeatedly said the judiciary is independent and makes its own decisions.
Speaking to reporters in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, Istanbul mayor Imamoglu said he thought the verdict would be overturned at appeal.
“Despite everything, our Turkey has judges who will make the right decision on this issue,” he said.
“They are there despite everything and I believe they will make the right call. Personally, I will support Canan until the end, as my provincial chairwoman and as my comrade.”

BAGHDAD: Iraqi journalists, activists and researchers are facing a wave of accusations and threats by shadowy online groups they suspect are linked to powerful pro-Iran factions.
Parties, armed groups and even officials in Iraq benefit from legions of supporters dubbed “electronic armies,” which take to social media to anonymously sing their praises or mock their detractors.
These online rivalries now appear to have been fanned by months of rising tensions pitting Iran against the US and Israel.
This summer, suspicious explosions hit five camps and arms depots run by Iraq’s Hashed Al-Shaabi, a network of mostly Shiite armed factions linked to Iran.
The Hashed was quick to blame Israel and the United States, but also said it suspected “agents” of the two countries contributed to the attacks.
That accusation was followed by an online campaign accusing a broad range of Iraqi nationals of “collaborating” with Israel and the US.
One graphic shared by an Arabic-language page named “Don’t Tread on Us” accused 14 Iraqis of de facto supporting a policy of “normalization with Israel.”
Shared on social media, it named figures such as journalist Joumana Mumtaz and blogger Ali Wajih.
In response, Wajih penned a rare open letter to Iraq’s prime minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, Hashed chief Faleh Fayyadh and his powerful deputy Abu Mehdi Al-Muhandis.
“For years, a group of us journalists and bloggers has faced incitements to murder by people and pages that may be close to the Hashed, or directly linked to it,” he wrote.
Allegations they were “agents” or seeking normalization with Israel, Wajih said, were “empty and silly.”
Iraqis have long been opposed to Israel because of its occupation of Palestinian land.
Baghdad has however developed close ties with Washington since the American-led invasion that toppled ex-dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Despite that, Washington’s bitter rival Tehran also holds considerable sway in Iraq’s political scene and within the Hashed.
In recent months, anti-Israel and anti-US rhetoric has been on the rise as Iraqis feel increasingly squeezed by the war of words between the two sides.
Some Iraqi factions have used the purported Israeli strikes to relaunch calls for US troops to leave Iraq.
Just last week, many of the same figures lashed out against US-funded Al-Hurra TV for a documentary alleging corruption among Iraq’s religious bodies, both Sunni and Shiite.
Perceptions Iraq was being “attacked” by Israel and America were “broadened to include critical and independent Iraqi voices, who have been maligned as agents in a broader plot,” said Fanar Haddad, an Iraq expert at the National University of Singapore.
“In this way, entrenched domestic interests and rivalries have been folded into the ongoing tensions between the Iran-led axis of resistance and the United States, Israel and their allies in the region,” he said.
Omar Al-Shaher, a journalist named in the graphic, said there was “not a shred of proof” to back up the claims.
“These days, it’s more dangerous than ever to have your name associated with the Israeli camp,” he told AFP.
Historian Omar Mohammad, who documented atrocities in Mosul under the Daesh group, said he suspected the new accusations came “as a result of the recent (purported) Israeli airstrikes and US-Iranian tensions.”
Mohammad said the graphic’s sleek production meant he was “absolutely” taking its threats seriously.
“It is institutional and professional. Seems there is a team specialized in dehumanizing us,” Mohammad told AFP from outside Iraq.
Media rights groups are worried such incitement could lead to real violence.
“The sensitivity of the Palestinian question in the region means that accusing someone of working with Israel is tantamount to calling for their killing,” said the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory.
On Thursday, monitor and rights group Iraqi Media House called for better protection of journalists.
“The phenomenon of electronic armies has reached dangerous levels, issuing threats including incitement to violence and hatred,” it said.
“We are surprised by the authorities’ continued silence so far, including the judiciary, in a clear abandonment of its responsibilities when it comes to electronic crimes.”