Following the International Atomic Energy Agency’s most recent report, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told the Board of Governors that Iran has ceased cooperating with the IAEA on urgent issues. “Consequently, he said, “the Agency has lost continuity of knowledge in relation to the production and inventory of centrifuges, rotos and bellows, heavy water and uranium ore concentrate.”
Director Grossi noted that while Iran claims it has declared all nuclear material, activities and locations required under its NPT [Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty] Safeguards Agreement, that claim “is inconsistent with the Agency’s findings of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at undeclared locations in Iran.” The result is that the IAEA is unable to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is “exclusively peaceful.”
In a statement to the IAEA Board of Governors, Laura Holgate, U.S. Ambassador to the Vienna Office of the United Nations and to the International Atomic Energy Agency, called Iran’s nuclear activities “deeply troubling.”
Ambassador Holgate said, “As the Director General’s report makes clear, rather than addressing the international community’s concerns, Iran continues to move further in the wrong direction. Iran continues to expand its nuclear program, to install additional advanced centrifuge cascades and to produce highly enriched uranium for which it has no credible purpose.”
Ambassador Holgate also noted that Iran’s de-designation of experienced IAEA inspectors “has seriously affected the Agency’s verification activities.”
On September 11, the United States joined France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in issuing a joint statement deploring Iran’s lack of progress in clarifying information regarding the “correctness and completeness” of its declarations under its NPT Safeguards Agreement.
“If Iran continues to fail to provide the necessary, full, and unambiguous cooperation with the Agency to resolve all outstanding safeguards issues, further action by this Board will be necessary,” the four nations declared. For the sake of “the integrity of the international non-proliferation architecture and ultimately global security,” they said, “[we] cannot allow Iran to evade its safeguards obligations year after year.”
