Iranian lawmakers are considering ending their cooperation with a UN nuclear watchdog in the wake of a U.S. attack on several key nuclear sites.
Iran’s parliament is looking to pass a bill that would “suspend Iran’s cooperation” with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a global consortium focused on limiting the use of nuclear power for military purposes, “until we have objective guarantees of the professional behavior of this international organization,” Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said Monday.
“The world clearly saw that the Atomic Energy Agency has not fulfilled any of its obligations and has become a political tool,” he added.
For months, top American intelligence officials have said that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” In a June report, the Congressional Research Service underscored that “Tehran has the capacity to produce nuclear weapons at some point, but has halted its nuclear weapons program and has not mastered all of the necessary technologies for building such weapons.”
But in the days leading up to the Saturday night attack, Donald Trump flagrantly disregarded the advice of his key advisers, opting to believe another narrative instead.
“I don’t care what she said,” the president told reporters on Tuesday on Air Force One, referring to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s March testimony that Iran was not close to having a nuclear weapon. “I think they were very close to having one.”
IAEA director Rafael Grossi said that the damage dealt by America’s weekend airstrike on Iran’s nuclear facilities was expected to be “very significant.”
Iran has argued that it is seeking uranium for peaceful purposes, such as expanding its nuclear energy program. It has undergone years of nuclear site inspections by the IAEA, and as of last week was allowing IAEA inspectors to remain in the country, according to Grossi.
The only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East is presumed to be Israel, which will not confirm or deny possessing what the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons estimates are approximately 90 nuclear weapons.
Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia chastised Israel during an emergency UN Security Council Sunday for not being subject to the same IAEA inspections as a non-signatory on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty. The envoy condemned the American attack on Iran, and said that “accepting the recent U.S. actions would undermine all the progress the international community has made in the field of nuclear non-proliferation,” according to the MiddleEastMonitor.
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