Iran criticised by UN watchdog after cameras taken from nuclear facility

The UN nuclear watchdog’s board of governors voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday in favour of a resolution criticising Iran for failing to co-operate sufficiently over its undeclared sites as tensions mount between the Islamic republic and western powers. 

Earlier on Wednesday it emerged that Iran had removed two cameras belonging to the UN atomic watchdog from one of its nuclear facilities. The Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran made the announcement that the cameras had been taken down as world powers were discussing the regime’s nuclear activities at a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

The decision appeared to be a pre-emptive move by Tehran as the US and European powers are expected this week to submit a resolution to the IAEA board criticising Iran for not co-operating with the watchdog. Reuters reported that a draft resolution was submitted on Tuesday.

Iranian officials have, however, warned that a critical resolution would damage diplomatic efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear accord Iran signed with world powers. The west accuses Tehran of stalling those efforts and of failing to provide the IAEA with relevant information on traces of atomic material found at some of Iran’s nuclear sites.

IAEA director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi said on Monday that Iran “has not provided explanations that are technically credible in relation to the agency’s findings at three undeclared locations in Iran”.

“Nor has Iran informed the agency of the current location, or locations, of the nuclear material and/or of the equipment contaminated with nuclear material, that was moved from Turquzabad [nuclear facility] in 2018,” he said in a statement ahead of the IAEA meeting.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesperson for the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, told state television on Wednesday that the Islamic republic “had extensive co-operation with the IAEA but the IAEA’s behaviour was not proportionate to this co-operation”.

“We hope the agency will come to its senses and respond with co-operation with Iran,” he said.

In a statement to the IAEA board meeting, the US said: “If accurate, reports that Iran plans to reduce transparency in response to this resolution are extremely regrettable and counterproductive to the diplomatic outcome we seek.” It added: “We do not seek escalation.”

Of the 35 member states on the UN nuclear watchdog’s board of governors, 30 voted in favour of the resolution criticising Iran while Russia and China opposed and three abstained.

The text, according to Reuters, says the board “expresses profound concern” over the uranium traces that were not clarified by Iran and calls on Tehran to co-operate with the watchdog “without delay”.

Iran’s permanent representative to the Vienna-based watchdog, Mohammad Reza Ghaebi, condemned the resolution and said his country preserved the right to reconsider its “policy and approach” towards the nuclear watchdog. “Iran will respond to this resolution accordingly and supporters of the resolution would be the ones responsible for the consequences.”

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Twitter that “the initiators are responsible for the consequences. Iran’s response is firm & proportionate”. 

Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett in a statement welcomed what he called “a significant resolution that exposes Iran’s true face”.

Iran agreed to one of the IAEA’s strictest monitoring programmes after signing the 2015 nuclear accord with the US, Germany, the UK, France, Russia and China. Under the deal, it agreed to curb its nuclear activity in return for the removal of many western sanctions.

But Tehran has been locked in a stand-off with the US since former president Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned the accord in 2018 and imposed waves of crippling sanctions on the republic. Iran responded by aggressively expanding its nuclear activity.

It is now enriching uranium at its highest ever levels and close to weapons grade. It has also been criticised by western officials for becoming less co-operative with the IAEA.

President Joe Biden pledged to rejoin the 2015 accord and remove many sanctions if Iran returned to compliance with the accord. But more than a year of indirect talks between Washington and Tehran, brokered by the EU, have become deadlocked as the two main protagonists have been unable to agree on key outstanding issues.

These include Tehran’s demand that the Biden administration remove the terrorist designation on Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

The west’s diplomatic efforts to save the deal have been complicated by the growing influence of hardliners after Ebrahim Raisi, a conservative cleric and protégé of Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, won presidential elections last year. Hardliners now control all arms of the state.

Western officials have repeatedly warned that the scale of Iran’s nuclear activity will make talks redundant if a deal is not swiftly reached.