Iran passes bill to halt IAEA cooperation as fragile Israel ceasefire holds

Al Jazeera

7 hours ago

Iran's parliament has passed a bill that would effectively suspend the country's cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as Iran insists it will not give up its civilian nuclear programme in the wake of massive attacks on the country by Israel and the United States.
The move on Wednesday comes after a US and Qatar-brokered ceasefire between Iran and Israel ended 12 days of fierce hostilities – including an intensive US military intervention that struck three Iranian nuclear facilities on Sunday.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview on Wednesday that parliament voted to suspend – but not end – cooperation with the IAEA, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog.
He said the US had 'torpedoed diplomacy' and could no longer be trusted, citing extensive damage to nuclear infrastructure. He reaffirmed Iran's right to pursue peaceful nuclear energy under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Addressing the parliamentary bill, Baghaei said it sets conditions for Iran's future engagement with the IAEA, including guarantees for the safety and security of Iranian scientists and nuclear facilities.
Ahead of Wednesday's vote, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf criticised the IAEA for having 'refused to even pretend to condemn the attack on Iran's nuclear facilities' that the US carried out.
'For this reason, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran will suspend cooperation with the IAEA until security of nuclear facilities is ensured, and Iran's peaceful nuclear programme will move forward at a faster pace,' Ghalibaf told lawmakers.
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear programme was peaceful, and both US intelligence agencies and the IAEA had concluded that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said he had already written to Iran to discuss resuming inspections of the country's nuclear facilities.
Iran claims to have moved its highly enriched uranium ahead of the US strikes, and Grossi said his inspectors need to reassess the country's stockpiles. 'We need to return,' he said. 'We need to engage.'
But given that Tehran has castigated Grossi for the IAEA's censure of Iran the day before Israel attacked on June 13, and his subsequent comments during the conflict, that seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Al Jazeera's Ali Hashem, reporting from Tehran, said it is 'clear that Iran's nuclear programme will continue despite everything that has happened'.
Hashem said the bill will now go to the Guardian Council, which will study it 'legally and religiously'.
'If there is consensus in the body, the bill will go to the Supreme National Security Council to be approved and finally to the government to become policy,' he added.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described Iran's decision as a direct consequence of the US and Israeli attacks on its nuclear sites.
'Disgraceful, despicable'
US intelligence officials have assessed the strikes as a targeted operation with limited effectiveness, saying the US bombings had only set Tehran's nuclear programme back by a few months.
The findings are at odds with US President Donald Trump's claims about the strikes. Trump has insisted that the nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan were 'obliterated' by a combination of bunker-busting and conventional bombs.
Meanwhile, the fragile truce between Israel and Iran appeared to be holding on Wednesday following a rocky start.
Trump told reporters at a NATO summit that it was going 'very well', insisting that Iran was 'not going to have a bomb and they're not going to enrich'.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the ceasefire agreement with Iran amounted to 'quiet for quiet', with no further understandings about Iran's nuclear programme going ahead.
In Iran, health officials said the number of Iranians killed in Israeli strikes has risen to 627, while the number of those wounded stood at 4,870.
Other signs of life returning to relative normality in Iran came as officials said they will ease internet restrictions that were put in place since the conflict began nearly two weeks ago.
'The communication network is gradually returning to its previous state,' said the cybersecurity command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in a statement carried by state media.
A spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Roads and Urban Development said that Iran's airspace will reopen at 2pm local time (10:30 GMT) on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the NATO summit, Trump said US and Iranian officials are due to speak next week, continuing a dialogue that was interrupted by Israel's attack and the subsequent conflict.
'I'll tell you what, we're going to talk with them next week, with Iran. We may sign an agreement, I don't know,' Trump told reporters.
Separately, Iran slammed NATO chief Mark Rutte's praise of Trump for the attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities.
'It is disgraceful, despicable and irresponsible for [NATO's secretary-general] to congratulate a 'truly extraordinary' criminal act of aggression against a sovereign state,' Baghaei wrote on the X platform.
Separately, Iranian state media reported on Wednesday that the head of the IRGC command centre, Ali Shadmani, died of wounds sustained during Israel's military strikes on the country. The command centre vowed 'harsh revenge' for his killing, state media added.
Israel had said on June 17 that it killed Shadmani, who it says it ascertained was Iran's wartime chief of staff and most senior military commander.