UN nuclear watchdog finds Iran in breach of non-proliferation obligations for first time in 20 years
The United Nations nuclear watchdog has declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations on Thursday, for the first time in almost 20 years.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) findings could lead to further tensions and set in motion an effort to restore United Nations sanctions on Tehran later this year.
Since Iran bristles at resolutions against it and this is the most significant one in years, it is likely to respond with a nuclear escalation, as it has said it will.
That could complicate the current talks between Iran and the US aimed at imposing new curbs on Iran's accelerating atomic activities.
The resolution also comes at a time of particularly heightened tension, with the US withdrawing staff from the Middle East.
US President Donald Trump has warned the region could become dangerous, saying Washington would not let Iran have nuclear weapons.
Diplomats at the closed-door meeting said the board passed the resolution submitted by the US, Britain, France, and Germany with 19 countries in favour, 11 abstentions, and three states — Russia, China, and Burkina Faso — against.
"The board of governors … finds that Iran's many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran … constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with the agency," the draft resolution said.
The draft resolution also said the IAEA's "inability … to provide assurance that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively peaceful gives rise to questions that are within the competence of the United Nations Security Council, as the organ bearing the main responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security."
Iran has announced countermeasures to the IAEA's resolution, state TV said on Thursday, including the opening of a new enrichment site and upgrading of centrifuges in the Fordow nuclear facility.
Tehran also condemned the solution, describing it as a "political" decision without technical or legal foundations.
The US and Iran have been holding talks on Tehran's rapidly advancing nuclear program. Oman's foreign minister said earlier on Thursday that a sixth round of negotiations would be held in his country on Sunday.
The IAEA flagged that Iran had amassed more near-weapons-grade uranium in its May 31 confidential report.
The report sternly warned Iran was now "the only non-nuclear-weapon state to produce such material" — something the agency said was of "serious concern".
US intelligence services and the IAEA have long believed Iran had a secret, coordinated nuclear weapons programme it halted in 2003, though isolated experiments continued for several years.
IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi said this week the findings were broadly consistent with that.
Iran denies ever having pursued nuclear weapons.
While the resolution alluded to reporting Iran to the UN Security Council, diplomats said it would take a second resolution to send it there, as happened the last time it was declared in non-compliance in September 2005, followed by referral in February 2006.
Reuters/AP
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