UN nuclear watchdog board censures Iran, which retaliates by announcing
a new enrichment site
[June 12, 2025]
By STEPHANIE LIECHTENSTEIN and JON GAMBRELL
VIENNA (AP) — The U.N. nuclear watchdog’s board of governors on Thursday
formally found that Iran isn’t complying with its nuclear obligations
for the first time in 20 years, a move that could lead to further
tensions and set in motion an effort to restore United Nations sanctions
on Tehran later this year.
Iran reacted immediately, saying it will establish a new enrichment
facility “in a secure location” and that “other measures are also being
planned.”
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has no choice but to respond to this
political resolution,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry and the Atomic
Energy Organization of Iran said in a joint statement.
U.S. President Donald Trump previously warned that Israel or America
could carry out airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities if
negotiations failed — and some American personnel and their families
have begun leaving the region over the tensions, which come ahead of a
new round of Iran-U.S. talks Sunday in Oman. In Israel, the U.S. Embassy
ordered American government employees and their families to remain in
the Tel Aviv area over security concerns.
Nineteen countries on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board,
which represents the agency’s member nations, voted for the resolution,
according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe
the outcome of the closed-doors vote.
Russia, China and Burkina Faso opposed it, 11 abstained and two did not
vote.
In the draft resolution seen by The Associated Press, the board of
governors renews a call on Iran to provide answers “without delay” in a
long-running investigation into uranium traces found at several
locations that Tehran has failed to declare as nuclear sites.
Western officials suspect that the uranium traces could provide further
evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until 2003.
The resolution was put forward by France, the U.K., Germany and the
United States.
Iran lists steps in retaliation for the IAEA vote
Speaking to Iranian state television after the vote, the spokesman for
the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said that his agency immediately
informed the IAEA of “specific and effective” actions Tehran would take.
“One is the launch of a third secure site” for enrichment, spokesman
Behrouz Kamalvandi said. He did not elaborate on the location. Iran has
two underground sites at Fordo and Natanz and has been building tunnels
in the mountains near Natanz since suspected Israeli sabotage attacks
targeted that facility.
The other step would be replacing old centrifuges for advanced ones at
Fordo. “The implication of this is that our production of enriched
materials will significantly increase,” Kamalvandi said.
According to the draft resolution, “Iran’s many failures to uphold its
obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely
cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at
multiple undeclared locations in Iran ... constitutes non-compliance
with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement.”
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The flag of the International Atomic Energy Agency flies in front of
its headquarters during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in
Vienna, Austria, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Matthias
Schrader, File)
Under those obligations, which are part of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is legally bound to declare all
nuclear material and activities and allow IAEA inspectors to verify
that none of it is being diverted from peaceful uses.
The draft resolution also finds that the IAEA’s “inability ... to
provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively
peaceful gives rise to questions that are within the competence of
the United Nations Security Council, as the organ bearing the main
responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and
security.”
The draft resolution made a direct reference to the U.S.-Iran talks,
stressing its “support for a diplomatic solution to the problems
posed by the Iranian nuclear program, including the talks between
the United States and Iran, leading to an agreement that addresses
all international concerns related to Iran’s nuclear activities,
encouraging all parties to constructively engage in diplomacy.”
Still a chance for Iran to cooperate with IAEA
A senior Western diplomat last week described the resolution as a
“serious step,” but added that Western nations are “not closing the
door to diplomacy on this issue.” However, if Iran fails to
cooperate, an extraordinary IAEA board meeting will likely be held
in the summer, during which another resolution could get passed that
will refer the issue to the Security Council, the diplomat said on
condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the
issue with the media.
The three European nations have repeatedly threatened in the past to
reinstate, or “snapback,” sanctions that have been lifted under the
original 2015 Iran nuclear deal if Iran does not provide
“technically credible” answers to the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s
questions.
The authority to reestablish those sanctions by the complaint of any
member of the original 2015 nuclear deal expires in October, putting
the West on a clock to exert pressure on Tehran over its program
before losing that power.
The resolution comes on heels of the IAEA’s so-called “comprehensive
report” that was circulated among member states last weekend. In the
report, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said that Iran’s cooperation with
the agency has “been less than satisfactory” when it comes to
uranium traces discovered by agency inspectors at several locations
in Iran.
One of the sites became known publicly in 2018, after Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed it at the United Nations and
called it a clandestine nuclear warehouse hidden at a rug-cleaning
plant. Iran denied this, but in 2019, IAEA inspectors detected the
presence of uranium traces there as well as at two other sites.
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