'If Iran doesn't cooperate..': US threatens escalation with Tehran at IAEA next month

After the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi told the nuclear watchdog’s 35-member Board of Governors that the meeting with Tehran was “inconclusive” ahead of the JCPOA negotiations expected to resume in Vienna next week, the US board members have threatened to “to confront” Islamic Republic if it “does not cooperate.” Grossi in his report on verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran told the board members at a meeting that Iran has failed to respond to the IAEA’s requests for access to its monitoring equipment and “was seriously compromising the agency’s technical capability for the verification and monitoring of its nuclear-related commitments.” 

The presence of multiple uranium particles of anthropogenic origin in Iran’s at least three nuclear facilities have not been declared to the IAEA, Grossi asserted, adding that there’s also the presence of “isotopically altered particles” at one of these unknown locations. Even after two years, the safeguard issues at Iran’s nuclear facilities remain “unresolved,” IAEA’s Director General Grossi disclosed. 

“There’s a clear indication that nuclear material or equipment contaminated by nuclear material have been present at these locations but Iran has still not provided the necessary explanations.”

After Grossi’s explosive report, addressing the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors Meeting, US Chargé d’Affaires in Vienna Louis Bono noted that there are currently four “undeclared locations in Iran, including three locations where the Agency has detected the presence of nuclear material.”

US’ Bono then asserted that Iran is in violation of its “legal obligations” under its NPT-required safeguards agreement. Pressing Iran to provide “credible and verifiable explanations” as to the origins and current location of the nuclear material, Bono condemned Iran’s “eleventh-hour attempts of non-cooperation” by unilaterally modifying or suspending arrangements of its ‘Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement’. 

“We are grateful that the Director-General [Grossi] travelled to Tehran this week despite the demands of preparing for the Board of Governors meeting, and we are ‘deeply disappointed’ that Iran refused to take the opportunity presented by his visit to make progress on the long list of urgent outstanding issues with IAEA,” said US Chargé d’Affaires in Vienna Louis Bono. 

“If Iran’s non-cooperation is not immediately remedied, including on the issues raised under the JCPOA agenda, especially the restoration of continuity of knowledge at Karaj, the Board will have no choice but to reconvene in extraordinary session before the end of this year in order to address the crisis,” US' Vienna Louis Bono said in a warning to Tehran. 

Iran asks IAEA not to make 'politically-motivated' remarks; says 'do not need permission' to produce nuclear centrifuges

Following IAEA Director-General Grossi's Tehran visit, head of Iran's mission to the UN in Vienna, Reza Ghaebi warned that the IAEA should refrain from making "hasty or politically-motivated" comments on the country's nuclear program. A spokesperson for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Tehran, Behrouz Kamalvandi, separately asserted that Iran "does not need permission from anyone" to produce advanced nuclear centrifuges, lamenting that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was "under the influence of the US" and its Western allies, Iran's Press TV reported. 

“At the Karaj nuclear facility, we don’t have nuclear material, and that’s why the site is not subject to the Safeguard Agreement. We produce centrifuges there. They say Iran is producing advanced centrifuges in the Karaj facility. Yes, we do not shy away from this fact,” Behrouz Kamalvandi said in an interview with Iran’s state TV on Thursday.

“Thank God, we are able to produce such centrifuges at a high capacity, and we do not get permission from anyone for this,” he said, adding that Iran is entitled to produce advanced centrifuges without having to endure any limits under Article 4 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Furthermore, Kamalvandi condemned the IAEA over its "prejudiced approach" blaming the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog for siding with its Western allies. “It is a fact that the IAEA has not treated Iran as it should have,” Kamalvandi said. “We have been constantly pointed this out and issued warnings.”