France, Germany and Britain will seek to censure Iran over its lack of cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog at a board meeting starting this Monday in Vienna, despite US opposition.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Tehran is the only non-nuclear weapon state to enrich uranium to 60 percent, while it keeps accumulating large uranium stockpiles.
That is approaching the enrichment levels of 90 percent needed for the production of atomic weapons.
It is also well above the authorised 3.67 percent used for nuclear power stations.
Iran has always denied wanting to acquire nuclear weapons, but the rapid expansion of its nuclear programme is seen as having no credible civilian justification.
European diplomats are reportedly submitting a motion against Iran at the Vienna meeting, driven by an "urgency to react to the gravity of the situation".
The planned resolution comes after the IAEA board passed the last one of its kind in November 2022.
Although Iran has continued to significantly ramp up its nuclear programme since then, the IAEA's board has refrained from a censure.
At the last board meeting in March, European powers decided to shelve their plans to confront Iran due to a lack of support from Washington.
The United States denies it is hampering European efforts to hold Tehran accountable but Washington fears a censure could aggravate Middle East tensions ahead of presidential elections in November.
New: US president Joe Biden's administration is opposing a European push — spearheaded by France — to rebuke Iran for advances in its nuclear program at the UN nuclear watchdog the IAEA's board of governors meeting in June, a diplomatic source told Argus.https://t.co/HreKrXrQ7V pic.twitter.com/w4KuQjkUbK
— Bachar EL-Halabi | بشار الحلبي (@Bacharelhalabi) May 27, 2024
'Essential and urgent'
Cooperation between Iran and the IAEA has severely deteriorated in recent years, with the UN nuclear watchdog struggling for assurances that Iran's nuclear programme is peaceful.
Diplomats say maintaining the current policy of inaction amid Iran's escalation is no longer tenable and the US position could change ahead of the vote scheduled for later this week.
In May, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi visited Iran in a bid to improve cooperation, calling for "concrete results ... soon".
In the meantime, the death of Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month has put negotiations on hold.
Diplomats, however, suggest Iran is using the accident as an excuse to stall.
'Wider impasse'
Iran has gradually broken away from its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal it struck with the United States, China, Russia, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
The landmark deal provided Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its atomic programme.
But it fell apart after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States under then-president Donald Trump in 2018.
Efforts to revive the deal have so far failed.
According to Naysan Rafati, an Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group: "The US has reportedly been hesitant to endorse a resolution because Tehran has previously tended to double down on the very activities that are prompting censure".
But Washington "will also be reluctant to publicly break with its European allies", he added.
"A showdown at the board reflects a wider impasse over Iran's nuclear activity, with little diplomatic activity but increasing concern over a programme that continues to expand in scale under limited international oversight," Rafati said.
The June session of the #IAEA Board of Governors will start tomorrow. It doesn’t promise to be quiet. An anti-Iranian resolution can be tabled. Hopefully it will not happen. Such a resolution by definition can’t bring positive results but can seriously deteriorate the situation.
— Mikhail Ulyanov (@Amb_Ulyanov) June 2, 2024
Ulyanov wrote he hopes an "anti-Iranian resolution" will not be tabled, since it risks "seriously deteriorating the situation".
