IAEA to censure Iran over frozen nuclear talks

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi is expected to address Iran's violations of its nonproliferation safeguards agreement. IAEA’s Board of Governors meets Monday through Friday in Vienna.

The resolution drafted by the United States, Britain, France and Germany is a sign of their growing impatience as diplomats warn the window to save the landmark deal is closing.

If the resolution urging Iran to “cooperate fully” with the IAEA is adopted, it will be the first motion censuring Iran since June 2020.

"There is no excuse for Iran's continued failure to provide meaningful cooperation with the agency's investigation," Kelsey Davenport, an expert with the Arms Control Association, told AFP.

"A resolution censuring Iran is necessary to send a message that there are consequences for stonewalling the agency and failing to meet safeguards obligations," she said.

Iran has warned "any political action" by the United States and the so-called E3 group of France, Germany and the UK would "provoke without any doubt a proportional, effective and immediate response".

In a report late last month, the IAEA said it still had questions that were “not clarified” regarding traces of enriched uranium previously found at three sites that had not been declared by Iran as having hosted nuclear activities.

Talks to revive the accord started in April 2021 with the aim to bring the United States back into the deal and lift sanctions again and get Iran to scale back its stepped-up nuclear program.

A key sticking point is Tehran’s demand for Washington to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological arm of Iran’s military, from the official US list of terror groups. US President Joe Biden’s administration has refused to do so.