Iran has dealt a nearly “fatal blow” to the possibility of reentering the 2015 nuclear deal, as Tehran removed nearly all of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s monitoring equipment installed under the original deal.
The Middle Eastern country informed the agency overnight between Wednesday and Thursday that its government was planning on removing “basically all” of the 27 IAEA cameras and other equipment, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said at a press conference, according to Reuters. The news came shortly after reports that Iran had shut off two of these cameras.
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The IAEA leader said the agency has roughly three to four weeks to restore some of its monitoring capabilities or else lose the ability to understand Iran’s nuclear activities.
If they can’t get it back online, “I think this would be a fatal blow [to reviving the deal],” he explained.
Days earlier, Grossi acknowledged that Iran is on the verge of having enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon.
“This is going to happen, because they continue to enrich, in a quite sustained way,” he explained. “And so, it’s a matter of time, where they get to one or more so-called ‘significant quantities’ … which is the quantity … for which the development of a nuclear weapon cannot be excluded.”
The United States and Iran’s talks to restart the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement have stalled in recent months. Tehran has remained committed to expanding its nuclear program despite the talks, and the Biden administration, over the course of their negotiations, weighed the decision but ultimately decided against removing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’s terrorist designation.
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“It remains a very big question mark as to whether we will get there,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters earlier this week when asked whether the U.S. and Iran would be able to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
A European and U.S.-led resolution by the IAEA board calling on Iran to cooperate with the agency won overwhelming support from all members but Russia and China.
