Iranʼs parliament has supported the suspension of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
This was reported by the Iranian agencies Tasnim and Mehr, as well as the Press TV channel.
According to Press TV, 222 deputies voted in favor of the project. Mehr writes that there were 223 deputies at the meeting, of whom 221 voted in favor.
According to Alireza Salimi, a member of the parliament’s presidium, the parliament has approved the “general provisions” of a bill to end cooperation with the IAEA. He says that IAEA personnel will not be allowed to enter Iran to inspect nuclear facilities unless they guarantee their safety and protect the “peaceful nuclear activities of the country”. The IAEA personnel’s visits must also be approved by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
This decision was made after the US launched strikes on several Iranian nuclear facilities. This violated international law, including the UN Charter, Iran believes.
Iranʼs nuclear technology is under the IAEAʼs control, as Iran is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Until the latest escalation in the Middle East, IAEA inspectors regularly visited Iran to carry out inspections — and in particular recorded an increase in the level of uranium enrichment at nuclear facilities in the country. After the Israeli attack, the IAEA also assessed the damage caused to Iranian nuclear facilities.
Whatʼs happening in the Middle East?
On the night of June 13, Israel attacked the center of Iranʼs nuclear, missile, and military infrastructure. After that, Iran declared that it would not participate in negotiations with the United States on its nuclear program, scheduled for June 15. On the evening of June 13, Iran responded by attacking Israel with ballistic missiles. The sides began to exchange blows.
On the night of June 22 , the United States attacked three Iranian nuclear facilities in the cities of Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. American B-2 stealth bombers dropped six GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs on Iranʼs Fordow nuclear facility, two GBU-57 bombs on the Natanz nuclear facility, and a U.S. Navy submarine launched a salvo of 30 Tomahawk missiles, targeting the Natanz facility and another in Isfahan. Details of the operation can be found here.
Trump claimed that all three sites had been "totally and irreversibly destroyed". The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kaine, had previously said that the nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan were "severely damaged", but he stopped short of saying that Iranʼs nuclear capabilities had been "destroyed".
And on June 23, Iran launched several missiles at American military bases in the Middle East.
- The NYT newspaper wrote that Iran could have been removing enriched uranium from nuclear facilities before the US attack. Given Donald Trumpʼs repeated threats to resort to military action, the Iranians could have removed 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%. This uranium was stored inside a nuclear complex near Isfahan.
- The Iranians have also been fortifying the Fordow plant to protect what cannot be moved. Satellite images show 16 trucks at the entrance. However, it is not known what exactly was removed from the facility, or whether anything was removed at all. In fact, the Iranians were only able to evacuate some of the materials, the publication noted.
- The US Vice President JD Vance and IAEA chief Rafael Grossi confirmed that it was still unclear where Iran’s enriched uranium was being stored. In an interview with CNN on June 22, Grossi added that “Iran is not hiding that they have been protecting this material”. Later that day, he was asked in a report whether he meant that the uranium stockpile had been moved. He replied, “Yes”.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.