A top Iranian official warned Thursday that Iran would stop its efforts to comply with the Iran nuclear agreement unless international inspectors stop their investigation into Iran’s past work on its nuclear program.
Under the deal, inspectors were instructed to examine the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program, or PMDs.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano is expected to release a new report on Iran’s nuclear program on Dec. 1. Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Seyyed Abbas Araqchi, warned that if the Dec. 1 report doesn’t close the file on PMDs, Iran will walk away.
“In case Yukiya Amano or the Board of Governors presents their report in such a way that it does not meet the stipulated commitments, the Islamic Republic of Iran will also stop [the implementation of] the JCPOA,” he said, according to PressTV, Iran’s state-owned news service.
The JCPOA is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, informally known as the Iran deal.
Iran’s new threat could be a significant problem for the implementation of the deal. On the same day Araqchi spoke, Amano delivered remarks in Vienna in which he said it’s still not clear how much undeclared nuclear material might exist in Iran.
“As my latest report on safeguards implementation in Iran shows, the agency continues to verify the non-diversion of nuclear material declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement,” IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said in a prepared statement in Vienna, Austria.
“But we are not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities,” he added.
Amano has made similar remarks all year, and it’s a strong sign that Iran has yet to fully cooperate with inspectors under the Iran nuclear agreement.
