The UN nuclear watchdog’s 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution yesterday saying Iran must inform it “without delay” of the status of its enriched uranium stock and bombed atomic sites, diplomats at the closed-door meeting said.
The resolution’s purpose was primarily to renew and adjust the International Atomic Energy Agency’s mandate to report on aspects of Iran’s nuclear programme, but it also stated Iran must quickly provide the IAEA with the answers and access it wants, five months after air strikes by Israel and the US.
Iran, which says its nuclear aims are entirely peaceful, warned before the US and Europe’s top three powers submitted this resolution that if it passed, it would “adversely affect” Tehran’s co-operation with the agency.
“Our message is clear: Iran must resolve its safeguards issues without delay. It must provide practical co-operation through access, answers, restoration of monitoring, to enable the agency to do its job and help rebuild confidence,” the US, Britain, France and Germany said in a statement to the board.
The resolution passed with 19 votes in favour, three against and 12 abstentions, diplomats at the meeting in Vienna said. Russia, China and Niger were the countries that opposed it.
“Iran must ... provide the agency without delay with precise information on nuclear material accountancy and safeguarded nuclear facilities in Iran, and grant the agency all access it requires to verify this information,” the draft resolution text submitted to the board and seen by Reuters said.
Iran still has not let inspectors into the nuclear sites Israel and the United States bombed in June, and the IAEA says that accounting for Iran’s enriched uranium stock, which includes material close to bomb-grade, is “long overdue” and the issue needs to be addressed “urgently”.
The IAEA cannot inspect the bombed facilities or verify Iran’s uranium stock until Tehran submits a report updating it on what has happened to them. The bombed sites include Iran’s three enrichment plants that were operating at the time.
&uuid=(email))