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Iran announced Tuesday that it has taken steps to increase its capacity for uranium enrichment in a warning of the potential consequences of the U.S. withdrawal last month from the nuclear deal.

Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said his government had notified the International Atomic Energy Agency of its plans to build a new facility for producing next-generation centrifuges to enrich uranium. At high enough levels of processing, enriched uranium is a component of a nuclear bomb.

Salehi stressed that Irans plans do not violate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the 2015 nuclear accord is called. Under the agreement, the country is allowed to build centrifuge parts but cannot put them into operation for a decade. Salehi said new centrifuges will be assembled if the JCPOA collapses.

If conditions allow, maybe tomorrow night at [the Natanz enrichment plant], we can announce the opening of the center for production of new centrifuges, Salehi was quoted saying by the Fars news agency.

Iran has denied that it seeks to acquire nuclear weapons and says its programs are directed toward energy production and medical uses.

The modest planning steps Salehi announced do not immediately violate the landmark nuclear deal but would if new centrifuges were assembled and put into operation. But the decision sends a strong signal of Irans intentions if the deal falls apart under U.S. pressure, and it complicates the task for Europeans trying to salvage the agreement after the U.S. pullout.

The announcement came one day after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered preparations for increasing uranium enrichment if the nuclear agreement disintegrates. He also vowed not to accept limits on Irans ballistic missile testing.

The countries that negotiated the deal along with the United States Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany have all said they will stay in the deal. The Europeans have been trying to find a way to keep it alive, even though some international companies that moved to do business in Iran are talking of reducing their presence there.

Supporters and critics of the deal said they were not surprised by Irans move.

This is what defenders of the JCPOA warned the administration about, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.

For now, Iran will continue to stay within the JCPOA limitations while it assesses whether the Europeans, Chinese, Russians and India can and will sustain trade and investment to make it worthwhile from Irans subjective perspective. How much time we have, I dont know. Thats what worries me. I dont think weve got a lot.

Mark Dubowitz, the head of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a prominent critic of the agreement, said Irans announced plans will not rescue the agreement as more companies shun the country for fear of running afoul of renewed U.S. sanctions.

The supreme leaders threat to step up enrichment is an attempt to use nuclear blackmail to force Europe to save his regime from an economic and political crisis of his own making, Dubowitz said. It will fail as more European companies exit Iran as the administration surrounds the country with an economic minefield.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in France for meetings with President Emmanuel Macron, said Iran is intent on destroying Israel.

We are not surprised, he said. We will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

Macron warned against the danger of escalation that would lead to conflict.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert declined to respond to Tehrans seeming threat to start enriching more uranium.

If the IAEA believes that that is taking place, we believe that the IAEA will report that back to its board of governors, and also, to the United Nations, so well just await that, if that has, in fact, ended up happening in Iran, she said.

Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spelled out 12 conditions the United States expects Iran to meet if it wants U.S. sanctions lifted. Chief among them is the demand Iran that stop its uranium enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing to foreclose any possible path to building a nuclear weapon.

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Iran plans new uranium enrichment - The Washington Post

There have since been reports, so far unverified, that Mr. Azari Jahromi has resigned.

On Tuesday, some users of Telegram in Iran said they were still able to communicate through the app over their home internet connections. In the confusion, several websites that are usually freely accessible including Wikipedia and Google were hard to reach.

Thousands of Russians are taking a bold stand against the Kremlins efforts to block the popular encrypted messaging service, which refused to give the state access to users messages.

Iran is not the only country trying to block Telegram. Two weeks ago, Russia obtained a court order to shut down the service after its founder, Pavel V. Durov, refused to provide the security services with the keys to read users encrypted messages.

To date, Moscows efforts have been thwarted as it continues a cat-and-mouse game with the company, and thousands of Russians demonstrated on Monday in a show of support for Telegram.

In Iran, the battle over the app has become something of a litmus test for Mr. Rouhani, whose popularity has dropped significantly since his re-election in May last year. During his campaign, he promised to deliver more freedoms, to provide greater employment opportunities and to get the countrys notorious morality police off the streets. He has largely fallen short of those goals.

Mr. President, none of your promises were realized, and preventing Telegram from being blocked is your last stronghold, a journalist named Nahid Molavi wrote on Twitter.

Telegram is widely used in Iran, for activities as varied as chatting, booking appointments at beauty salons, selling cars or finding partners. Even the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had his own channel until recently. Such channels, which sometimes draw hundreds of thousands of users who receive instant messages at the push of a button, played a major role in spreading videos of nationwide protests in December.

On Monday, Irans judiciary issued a decree ordering internet service providers to block access to the Telegram app, as they have already been doing for years for Facebook and Twitter.

Many people manage to bypass the states firewalls by using virtual private networks, or VPNs. But such software requires a lot of bandwidth, and they often significantly slow internet access.

In recent weeks, government institutions had already begun taking down their Telegram channels, urging people to switch to Iranian applications such as Soroush. But many Iranians chose not to follow the guidance.

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Iran, Like Russia Before It, Tries to Block Telegram App ...

Hezbollah's response was fierce. Rockets rained down for days on the northern Israeli countryside, with the Iranian proxy exchanging fire with Israeli forces near the border. Hezbollah fired five anti-tank missiles at an Israeli convoy on the border, killing two soldiers. As tensions soared along the border, a Spanish soldier serving as a UN peacekeeper was killed in the crossfire.

Three years later, and tensions are back. In fact, the situation has already deteriorated much further than it had in 2015.

It's no longer Israel confronting Hezbollah in a form of proxy war with Iran. Now, Israel and Iran face each other with Syria as the setting for their rivalry. What was for so long a war of words and covert actions between Israel and Iran risks moving closer to open confrontation.

The exchange made one thing clear: Israel and Iran appear to be on a collision course.

A battle that used to be carried out through proxies -- Israel fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon -- has been replaced by near-direct confrontation.

Another, more recent airstrike on the T-4 military base -- a strike pinned on Israel -- killed at least seven Iranian nationals.

A strike this past weekend that targeted Syrian military positions has all the hallmarks of an Israeli attack, though no one has yet blamed Israel. Airstrikes hit bases near Hama and Aleppo, with the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights saying 26 people were killed in the strike, most of them Iranian militiamen.

Iran denied an attack killed its fighters, according to the state-run Tasnim News Agency.

Nevertheless, Iran sees Israel's strikes in Syria as a violation of international law and Syrian sovereignty. Iran is Syria's biggest ally, supportive of President Bashar al-Assad. Iran has offered military assistance, technology and equipment to Assad as he tries to maintain his own position while fighting Syrian rebels and ISIS.

With the strikes attributed to Israel growing more frequent and more brazen, Iran has vowed to respond.

Hossein Salami, a senior Revolutionary Guard commander, issued a harsh warning during Friday prayers, seen as a key signaling tool for the Iranian regime.

"I say this to the Zionists, we know you very well. You are very vulnerable. You have neither depth nor backing. Your mischief has increased. Listen and be aware any war that might happen, rest assured will bring about your disappearance."

Israel has taken Iran's threat seriously, holding multiple security cabinet meetings in recent weeks to discuss tensions in the north. A CNN reporter in the Golan Heights also witnessed what appeared to be a buildup of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and more in the country's north.

"Iranian retaliation is on its way," says retired Israeli Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, the executive director of Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies in Israel. He notes two conflicting positions over Syria, in "the strategic position and determination of Iran to build advanced military forces in Syria, and the Israeli determination not to let that happen." Neither side has shown a willingness to compromise.

Israel views with growing alarm Iran's presence in Syria, with the country's leaders reiterating Israel's position: It will not allow Iran to establish a military presence in Syria.

While Syria might be suffering the fog of war, elsewhere Israel sees a surprising array of clearsighted neighbors and allies, creating favorable conditions to act.

Israel feels it can rely on unwavering support from the administration of US President Donald Trump, as the American President sees eye-to-eye with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the Iran deal.

In the past two weeks, the head of US Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel visited Israel, newly confirmed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman met the US secretary of defense and national security adviser in Washington, and Netanyahu spoke with Trump on the phone.

Citing a trove of files apparently taken from Tehran that he says prove Iran tried to mislead the world about its program, Netanyahu asked: "Why would a terrorist regime hide and meticulously catalog its secret nuclear files, if not to use them at a later date? Iran lied about having a nuclear weapons program. Iran continued to preserve and expands its nuclear weapons know-how for future use."

Additionally, the Saudis view Iran just as the Israelis do: a major threat to the region that is the Middle East's primary concern. Meanwhile, Egypt is focused on its own domestic issues and the security of the Sinai Peninsula. In other words, two key regional players who formerly had a tendency, in Israel's eyes, to place too much focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are looking elsewhere now.

"I know one thing for certain. We will not allow the Iranians to base themselves in Syria and there will be a price for that. We have no other choice," Liberman said recently. "To agree to an Iranian presence in Syria, it's agreeing to the fact that the Iranians will put a noose around your neck."

At a conference in New York this past weekend, Liberman insisted Israel still had liberty to act over Syria, even after it lost a fighter jet earlier this year.

Syria is a fractured country, but even in its shifting sands, Iran and Israel have drawn their red lines.

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Analysis: Iran and Israel draw closer to war than ever - CNN

Even before the recent clashes with Israel, many average Iranians were publicly asking: What is Iran doing spending billions of dollars which were supposed to go to Iranians as a result of the lifting of sanctions from the Iran nuclear deal fighting wars in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen?

That concern is surely one reason Iran, for all its fist-shaking has not retaliated yet. The Israeli airstrike on T4, along with the U.S.-British-French airstrike on the Syrian regimes suspected chemical weapons facilities, have actually exposed the strategic vulnerabilities of both Russia and Iran in Syria. Their forces are very powerful versus the rebels there, but not so powerful versus the Western forces and Israel. Iran, which has to depend largely on Syrias air defense system, is particularly exposed to Israels Air Force.

Russias appearance of omnipotence in the Syrian arena has been shattered, military writer Anshel Pfeffer noted in Haaretz on Monday. Appearances of power count for a lot in this region. Russias forces there are insufficient to take on any of the other nations who have operated, and may operate again, in Syria. The United States, Britain and France, as well as Israel and Turkey, can all deploy larger and more capable forces to the region much faster than Russia can.

Suleimani could opt to strike back at Israel through proxies, either in the Middle East or against Israeli targets globally. But he now has to think twice about that, both because his forces in Syria are exposed and for another reason: Iran is exposed financially. Irans currency is collapsing back home. The Iranian rial has lost one-third of its value just this year, which a wider confrontation with Israel would only exacerbate.

It would seem, in other words, that Suleimani is at odds with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Irans President Rouhani. Putin and Rouhani share an interest in Syria quieting down now, and not becoming a financial drain or a military quagmire by Suleimani turning it into an arena for a direct war with Israel.

But economic restraints have never stopped Suleimani and his Quds Force before and may not now. Their ambitions are big to create a base to pressure Israel directly, to dominate the Arab states around them and to maintain the fervor of the Islamic Revolution. Everyone is basically awaiting Suleimanis next move. Does he back down, lose a little face, and wait until he is stronger? Does Israel let him?

These are momentous days for both countries. One thing I know for sure. The status quo is not sustainable.

This column was updated April 17 to reflect news developments.

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Opinion | Are Iran and Israel Headed for Their First ...

In the medium term, with some recovery in investment growth, Irans economy is expected to experience moderate growth rates, at slightly over 4%. The contribution of exports will diminish, as spare capacity in the oil sector is utilized and the increase in oil production decelerates. On the production side, the revival of non-oil industrial production is expected to be the main contributor to overall growth; agriculture and service sectors are projected to grow by around 4 and 3 percent, respectively. The gradual change in the composition of growth could also help increase employment due to higher job elasticity in these sectors.

GDP growth in the first half of the Iranian calendar year (ending on March 20), reached 7.4% Year Over Year (yoy). The boost in growth was largely a result of the oil sectors bounce back, both in production and exports, following the removal of sanctions in January 2016 through the JCPOA. However, economic activity seems muted in non-oil sectors (0.9% yoy growth in the first half of 2016) as the delay in the Iranian banking sectors integration with the global banking system continued to impede FDI and trade.

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Iran's Economic Outlook- April 2017 - World Bank