IAEA Censures Iran for Insufficient Cooperation
Due to recent developments, the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reprimanded Iran's behavior toward the UN nuclear watchdog. Previously, the latter had neglected to declare three undeclared sites with detected uranium traces. Now it is accused of lack of cooperation.
The Declaration was adopted in the course of the IAEA Board of Govenors Meeting. / Picture: © IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency / Dean Calma / Flickr Attribution (CC BY 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
The 35 members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors recently voted overwhelmingly to censure Iran for showing a lack of willingness to cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog.
The resolution, which was passed Wednesday, focuses mainly on three undeclared sites where uranium traces were found that Iran had not declared to the IAEA.
In addition to the 30 countries voting in favor of the motion put forward, Libya, Pakistan and India abstained and only Russia and China opposed the text.
In the statement, the IAEA panel expressed "deep concern" about Iran's insufficient cooperation and called on Iran to cooperate immediately with the watchdog on uncovering unresolved traces.
UK, France, Germany and the United States Satisfied with Decision
The U.S. and E3 (France, Germany and the United Kingdom) governments issued a statement welcoming the adoption of the Board of Governors' resolution and expressing satisfaction with the large majority.
They accuse Iran of "insufficient cooperation by Iran with the IAEA on serious and outstanding safeguards issues related to Iran's obligations under its NPT-obligated safeguards agreement" and interpret the overwhelming majority as "an unequivocal message to Iran that it must comply with its safeguards obligations and provide technically credible clarifications on outstanding safeguards issues."
The overwhelming majority vote at the #IAEA #BoG yesterday sends an unambiguous message to Iran that it must meet its safeguards obligations & provide technically credible clarifications on outstanding safeguards issues. Read the Joint Statement: https://t.co/JGh3GUPPKa
— U.S. Mission to the UN (Vienna) (@usunvie) June 9, 2022
The joint statement concludes with a direct call to the Iranian government, "We urge Iran to heed the call of the international community to comply with its legal obligations and work with the IAEA to fully clarify and resolve issues without further delay. If Iran does so, and the Director General is able to report that the unresolved safeguards issues are no longer outstanding, we see no need for further consideration and action by the Board of Governors on these issues."