UN nuclear watchdog board censures Iran, which retaliates by announcing a new enrichment site
The flag of the International Atomic Energy Agency flies in front of its headquarters during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
VIENNA — The UN nuclear watchdog's board of governors on Thursday formally found that Iran isn't complying with its nuclear obligations for the first time in 20 years, a move that could lead to further tensions and set in motion an effort to restore United Nations sanctions on Tehran later this year.
Iran reacted immediately, saying it will establish a new enrichment facility 'in a secure location' and that 'other measures are also being planned.'
'The Islamic Republic of Iran has no choice but to respond to this political resolution,' the Iranian Foreign Ministry and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said in a joint statement.
U.S. President Donald Trump previously warned that Israel or America could carry out airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations failed — and some American personnel and their families have begun leaving the region over the tensions. The escalation over Iran's nuclear program comes ahead of a new round of Iran-U.S. talks Sunday in Oman.
Nineteen countries on the International Atomic Energy Agency's board, which represents the agency's member nations, voted for the resolution, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the outcome of the closed-doors vote.
Russia, China and Burkina Faso opposed it, 11 abstained and two did not vote.
In the draft resolution seen by The Associated Press, the board of governors renews a call on Iran to provide answers 'without delay' in a long-running investigation into uranium traces found at several locations that Tehran has failed to declare as nuclear sites.
Western officials suspect that the uranium traces could provide further evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until 2003.
The resolution was put forward by France, the U.K., Germany and the United States.
Iran under pressure as Trump warns of possible airstrikes
Speaking to Iranian state television after the vote, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said that his agency immediately informed the IAEA of 'specific and effective' actions Tehran would take.
'One is the launch of a third secure site' for enrichment, spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said. He did not elaborate on the location. Iran has two underground sites at Fordo and Natanz and has been building tunnels in the mountains near Natanz since suspected Israeli sabotage attacks targeted that facility.
The other step would be replacing old centrifuges for advanced ones at Fordo. 'The implication of this is that our production of enriched materials will significantly increase,' Kamalvandi said.
According to the draft resolution, '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.'
Under those obligations, which are part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is legally bound to declare all nuclear material and activities and allow IAEA inspectors to verify that none of it is being diverted from peaceful uses.
The draft resolution also finds that 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.'
The draft resolution made a direct reference to the U.S.-Iran talks, stressing its 'support for a diplomatic solution to the problems posed by the Iranian nuclear program, including the talks between the United States and Iran, leading to an agreement that addresses all international concerns related to Iran's nuclear activities, encouraging all parties to constructively engage in diplomacy.'
Still a chance for Iran to cooperate with IAEA
A senior Western diplomat last week described the resolution as a 'serious step,' but added that Western nations are 'not closing the door to diplomacy on this issue.' However, if Iran fails to cooperate, an extraordinary IAEA board meeting will likely be held in the summer, during which another resolution could get passed that will refer the issue to the Security Council, the diplomat said on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue with the media.
The three European nations have repeatedly threatened in the past to reinstate, or 'snapback,' sanctions that have been lifted under the original 2015 Iran nuclear deal if Iran does not provide 'technically credible' answers to the UN nuclear watchdog's questions.
The authority to reestablish those sanctions by the complaint of any member of the original 2015 nuclear deal expires in October, putting the West on a clock to exert pressure on Tehran over its program before losing that power.
The resolution comes on heels of the IAEA's so-called 'comprehensive report' that was circulated among member states last weekend. In the report, the UN nuclear watchdog said that Iran's cooperation with the agency has 'been less than satisfactory' when it comes to uranium traces discovered by agency inspectors at several locations in Iran.
One of the sites became known publicly in 2018, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed it at the United Nations and called it a clandestine nuclear warehouse hidden at a rug-cleaning plant. Iran denied this, but in 2019, IAEA inspectors detected the presence of uranium traces there as well as at two other sites.
___
Stephanie Liechtenstein And Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press
Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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From 1979 to 2023, the Pentagon generated almost 4,000 MtCO 2 e – about the same as the entire 2023 emissions reported by India, a country of 1.4 billion people. Its installations and 700 bases account for about 40%, while 60% are operational emissions, resulting from fuel use in war, training and exercises with other countries, according to Crawford's analysis. In addition, the military industry – US-based companies manufacturing weapons, planes and other equipment for warfare – generates more than double the greenhouse gases emitted by the Pentagon each year. Still, the known US military climate impact is probably a significant undercount. Crawford's figures do not account for greenhouse gases generated by dropping bombs, destroying buildings and subsequent reconstruction. The additional CO 2 released into the atmosphere as a result of destroying carbon sinks such as forests, farmland and even whales killed during naval exercises are also not included, nor are those generated by burning oil fields or blowing up pipelines during conflicts. Significantly, the ripple effect of increased militarisation and operations by allies and enemies is also not counted. For instance, the emissions generated by the armed forces and death squads of Argentina, El Salvador and Chile during the US-backed dirty wars are not accounted for, nor those from China increasing its military exercises in response to US threats. Jet fuel shipped to Israel and Ukraine can be counted if transported on a military tanker, while commercial shipments of crude used for warfare are not. 'These are important but, as yet, not well understood climate consequences of military spending and war,' Crawford said. 'We've long underestimated the impact of mobilisation, war and reconstruction.' Yet the Pentagon has long warned that water scarcity, sea level rise and desertification in vulnerable regions could lead to political instability and forced migration, framing climate change as a 'threat multiplier' to US interests. In 1991, former president George HW Bush formally acknowledged climate change as a national security threat. More recently, the direct threat posed by floods, wildfires and land degradation to US military capabilities has become clear. In 2018, during the first Trump administration, flood water from Hurricane Michael destroyed an air force base in Florida, and then a few months later another storm significantly damaged the Strategic Command base in Nebraska, headquarters of the nation's nuclear arsenal. Overall, the US military has reduced its fuel use and emissions since 1975, thanks to base closures, fewer and smaller exercises, switching from coal, and increasingly efficient vehicles and operations. But according to Crawford, this is driven by improving fighter efficiency – not the environment. 'The Pentagon has framed migration from climate change as a threat in order to get more money, which shows a lack of compassion and a failure to think ahead. If they really believed their own rhetoric, they would of course work to reduce their contribution to climate change by reducing emissions. The irony is difficult to stomach,' she said. The military ripple effect is playing out. In response to Russia's ground invasion of Ukraine – and more recently, Trump's shift towards authoritarianism and anti-Ukraine, anti-Europe rhetoric – the UK, Germany and other Nato countries have increased military spending. Here lies a fundamental problem, Crawford argues. 'We can't let Ukraine fall, but that doesn't mean you have to mobilise all of Europe's militaries in this way and spend this much. Russia is not the threat that they were years ago, yet the current response is based around the same old aggressive military doctrine. It's just nonsensical and bad news for the climate. 'There's a less expensive, less greenhouse gas-intensive way of standing up to the Russians, and that would be to support Ukraine, and directly,' said Crawford, an expert in military doctrine and peace building, and the current Montague Burton professor of international relations at the University of Oxford. Another global military trend that could have significant climate and environmental costs is the expansion of nuclear forces. The US and UK are considering modernising their submarine fleets, while China's expanding nuclear force includes a growing arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles. The production of nuclear weapons is energy- and greenhouse gas-intensive. 'Nuclear modernisation is supposed to be making us safer, more stable, but usually leads to adversaries also increasing conventional forces as well,' said Crawford. 'It's part of a broader militarisation, all of which leads to an upward spiral in emissions. The threat inflation always leads to emissions inflation.' The total military carbon footprint is estimated at about 5.5% of global emissions – excluding greenhouse gases from conflict and war fighting. This is more than the combined contribution of civilian aviation (2%) and shipping (3%). If the world's militaries were a country, this figure would represent the fourth largest national carbon footprint in the world – higher than Russia. The global military buildup could be catastrophic for global heating, at a time when scientists agree that time is running out to avoid catastrophic temperature rises. And despite growing calls for greater military accountability in climate breakdown, Crawford fears the Trump administration will no longer publish the fuel data that she relies on to calculate Pentagon emissions. In addition to withdrawing from the Paris agreement, the Trump administration has failed to report the US's annual emissions to the UN framework convention on climate change for the first time and has erased all mention of climate change from government websites. 'Getting a handle on the scale, scope and impact of the world's military emissions is extremely important, so that there is accountability and a path toward reduction … but the US is shutting things down,' said Crawford. 'It's becoming a black hole of information. It's authoritarianism.'
