Iran will no longer allow the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi to enter its nuclear facilities and will not allow the installation of video surveillance cameras there.
This was stated by the Vice Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Hamid Reza Haji Babaei, according to the Iranian Mehr news agency.
The decision was made because Israeli documents allegedly contained “important information” about these facilities. Babai did not specify what exactly this was. But he noted that Western pressure on Iran, including the IAEA’s actions, is “part of the ʼUS hostility against the Iranian people’”.
The other day, on June 25, the Iranian parliament supported a bill to suspend cooperation with the IAEA. Subsequently, this decision was supported by the Guardian Council of the Constitution of Iran. The last step was the National Security Council of Iran. The document stipulates that IAEA inspectors will not be able to enter Iran for inspections unless they guarantee the safety of nuclear facilities and the countryʼs peaceful nuclear activities.
Iranʼs nuclear technology is under the control of the IAEA, as Iran is a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Until the latest escalation in the Middle East, IAEA inspectors regularly visited Iran to carry out inspections, including recording 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 facilities “have been completely and irreversibly destroyed”. The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kaine, had previously stated that the nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan were “severely damaged”, but he stopped short of saying that Iran’s nuclear capabilities had been “destroyed”. And on June 23, Iran fired several missiles at US military bases in the Middle East.
On the night of June 24, the US President Donald Trump reported that Israel and Iran had agreed to a complete ceasefire. A few hours later, Israel confirmed the start of the ceasefire. Then it said that Tehran had violated it.
Iranʼs nuclear program
The Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2015 by the US, UK, Russia, France, China, Germany and the EU. They agreed that the Iranian authorities would give up their nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump withdrew the country from the Iran nuclear deal and launched a "maximum pressure" campaign — new sanctions against the Iranian regime in order to obtain significant concessions from it.
Tehran resumed uranium production after Trump pulled out of the deal. Under Joe Biden’s presidency, Iran’s nuclear program has “advanced significantly,” Axios noted.
The Biden administration has been conducting indirect talks with Iran to revive the Iran nuclear deal. Those efforts collapsed in late 2022 when the United States accused Iran of making “unfounded” demands related to an International Atomic Energy Agency investigation into unexplained traces of uranium found at undisclosed Iranian sites. In the months that followed, the Trump administration maintained that the Iran nuclear deal was “off the table”.
After his re-election to a second term, Trump renewed his “maximum pressure” campaign. The parties held several rounds of talks, but never concluded a new nuclear agreement. And after the US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, Tehran rejects the resumption of negotiations.
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