The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said early on Thursday that Iran would “basically” withdraw all cameras installed under the 2015 nuclear deal, after the country was censored in early this week by the IAEA Board of Governors for not fully cooperating with nuclear control.
In a statement, Blinken accused Iran of threatening “new nuclear provocations” and making “further cuts in transparency.”
The top US diplomat called these steps “counterproductive and would further complicate our efforts to return to full implementation” of the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Comprehensive Joint Action Plan (JCPOA).
“The only result of this path will be the deepening of the nuclear crisis and greater economic and political isolation of Iran,” he said. “We continue to pressure Iran to opt for diplomacy and escalation.”
Iran’s decision to withdraw the cameras could jeopardize the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA), which puts verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear program designed to prevent country get a nuclear weapon.
The IAEA chief said on Thursday that Iran would “basically” withdraw all cameras installed under the JCPOA, while warning that the move could be a “fatal blow” to the pact.
“The idea is to eliminate anything beyond the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement, that’s the principle, now we have to see how it works,” IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi told reporters at the quarterly meeting of the Board of Governors in Vienna.
Biden administration officials, however, did not go that far.
“This is very unpleasant and will make everything more difficult. But we would not say that this is the beginning of the end,” a senior administration official told CNN.
A State Department spokesman told CNN that Iran has not yet taken steps to remove the 27 cameras used to monitor nuclear facilities. But if Iran goes ahead, it will create complications to return to the agreement, they said.
Grossi told CNN that it is “technically impossible” to have a nuclear deal with Iran if it restricts access to its facilities for disabling the cameras.
“We have a number of means of verifying Iran’s activities in various areas related to the JCPOA. When Iran begins to restrict such access, at some point, if the JCPOA were to be reactivated … participants have of having a baseline, an amount needed to know what Iran has or (doesn’t have) in order to verify it, ”he said Thursday in an interview with CNN’s Becky Anderson. “If you don’t have that, it’s technically impossible to have an agreement.”
Talks to revive the deal – abandoned by the U.S. under the Trump administration – broke down in March without a deal. The Biden administration, however, is still hoping to save the 2015 deal.
Although Blinken blamed Iran on Thursday for not yet reaching an agreement to reactivate the deal, he continued to show his openness to save the nuclear deal.
“The United States remains committed to a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA. We are ready to conclude an agreement based on the agreements we negotiated with our European allies in Vienna for many months. This agreement has been available since March. , but we can only conclude negotiations and implement them if Iran abandons its additional demands that are outside the JCPOA, “Binken said.
At a news conference on Thursday, Grossi said the IAEA could not give JCPOA signatories precise details on Iran’s progress if the nuclear deal is not revived in the next “three or four weeks.”
“We are in a very tense situation with the negotiations for the recovery of the JCPOA,” he said.
The cameras are spread across nuclear-related facilities across Iran, including Natanz, Isfahan and Tehran, Grossi said.
“These cameras are placed in places related to the production of centrifuge parts assemblies,” Grossi added, referring to the surveillance equipment removed.
The measure aims to prevent the IAEA from applying its “continuity of knowledge”, a principle used by the nuclear control dog to prevent undetected access to nuclear material or undeclared operations.
“The window of opportunity is very small,” Grossi said.
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said on Wednesday it had deactivated two IAEA cameras installed to monitor activities inside a nuclear facility, according to state news channel IRNA.
The Iranian organization said that “more than 80%” of the IAEA cameras will continue to function normally, as they fall under the “safeguards agreement”, but that the two deactivated cameras were installed. ” beyond the safeguards agreement, “IRNA reported.
On Wednesday, the U.S. said it was considering the issue of Iran’s compliance with the IAEA separately from negotiations on a return to the JCPOA.
“But in our opinion, there is an agreement on the table that would make a return of compliance for compliance to the JCPOA without dealing with foreign issues. This agreement is available to Iran. They should take it on. If not they do. It depends on them, “Sullivan told reporters when asked if disabling the two IAEA chambers would affect the resumption of talks on a return to the nuclear deal.
Iran censored
Iran suggested that the decision to turn off the cameras was reciprocal in a resolution tabled this week by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, criticizing Tehran for not cooperating fully with the IAEA. The resolution was approved on Wednesday by the Board of Governors of the IAEA member states.
Following the adoption of the resolution, the United States and European countries called on Iran to comply with the IAEA and to clarify and resolve the issues “without further delay.”
Iran, however, condemned the resolution as “political, incorrect and unconstructive”.
“The adoption of the resolution will only weaken the process of cooperation and interaction of the Islamic Republic of Iran with the IAEA,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
In a report released to member states last week, the IAEA found that Iran has increased its reserves of enriched uranium and provided no answers to unexplained nuclear activities at three undeclared sites. Grossi also told board members on Monday that Iran is only a few weeks away from having a “significant amount of enriched uranium.”
The United Kingdom, France and Germany warned on Tuesday that Iran’s nuclear program is “now more advanced than at any time in the past” and threatens “international security and the risk of undermining the global non-proliferation regime.”
The United States relies on the IAEA to oversee Iran’s nuclear program, but the United States is also gathering information on Iran’s capabilities.
A U.S. State Department spokesman told CNN: “If implemented, the escalating measures that Iran has threatened will undermine the IAEA’s ability to verify statements related to Iran’s JCPOA. using the cameras and other control equipment installed for this purpose, on some of the nuclear activities. they have been carried out since February 2021 “.
“This would mean that Iran should provide any information and transparency that the IAEA deems necessary to enable it to verify Iran’s statements as part of any negotiated return to the full implementation of the JCPOA. Obviously, this would complicate the “Iran’s stated political goal of a mutual return to full implementation of the agreement,” they added.
U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, congratulated the IAEA Board of Governors on Wednesday on approving the resolution, saying it was “time” for “public accountability in Iran. its failure to provide credible and timely information. ” cooperation with IAEA research on undeclared nuclear materials. “
“Iran now has enough uranium to produce a nuclear weapon. This latest milestone brings us back to a well-known question: when will the Administration recognize that Iran’s nuclear advances will make a return to the 2015 JCPOA that is not in the strategic interest of the United States? ” he said in a statement.
But for months the Biden administration has continued to say that Iran is just a few weeks away from having enough fissile material to create a nuclear bomb, and they maintained that view on Thursday.
Henry Rome, who covers Middle East policy as Eurasia Group’s deputy head of research, told CNN that “it’s very difficult to keep saying that a deal is really viable at this stage as long as Iran follows suit. serious “.
“There are two dynamics here: first, to get back to the agreement, you need to have a baseline of what Iran has and where Iran has it, and by removing these cameras, you reduce the knowledge of exactly that. “This creates a lot of doubt, and the question is not in favor of a proposal that is already quite controversial,” he said.
“And then the broader point is that the severe Iranian reaction says something about where they are thinking of a deal. Today is the day that music died with the idea that Iran was trying to preserve some space for an agreement, “he said, adding. that “there is still a way to go,” but described it as “a big blow to the idea that the Iranians are really committed to reviving the agreement.”
CNN’s Ramin Mostaghim, Zahid Mahmood, Teele Rebane and Zeena Saifi contributed to this report.