Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian announced that his country is suspending cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He approved a corresponding bill.
This was reported by the state-run Iranian media Press TV and Mehr, the Turkish news agency Anadolu reports.
A few days earlier, Iranʼs parliament had passed a bill to suspend cooperation with the IAEA. This decision was later supported by Iranʼs Guardian Council. The final decision was up to Iranʼs National Security Council, which includes the president.
The document stipulates that IAEA inspectors will not be able to enter Iran for inspections unless they guarantee the security of nuclear facilities and the countryʼs peaceful nuclear activities.
The country also reported that it would no longer allow the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi to its nuclear facilities and would not allow the installation of video surveillance cameras there.
These decisions were made after the US launched strikes on several Iranian nuclear facilities on the night of June 22. This violated international law, including the UN Charter, Iran believes.
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 announced 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 US 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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