Iran suspends cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog 'until certain conditions are met'
Iran's decision drew an immediate condemnation from Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
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'Iran has just issued a scandalous announcement about suspending its cooperation with the IAEA,' he said in an X post. 'This is a complete renunciation of all its international nuclear obligations and commitments.'
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Saar urged European nations that were part of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal to implement its so-called snapback clause. That would reimpose all UN sanctions on it originally lifted by Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers, if one of its Western parties declares the Islamic Republic is out of compliance with it.
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Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, and the IAEA doesn't have access to its weapons-related facilities.
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Tammy Bruce, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, separately said it was 'unacceptable that Iran chose to suspend cooperation with the IAEA at a time when it has a window of opportunity to reverse course and choose a path of peace and prosperity.'
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Iran's move so far stops short of what experts feared the most. They had been concerned that Tehran, in response to the war, could decide to fully end its cooperation with the IAEA, abandon the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and rush toward a bomb. That treaty has countries agree not to build or obtain nuclear weapons and allows the IAEA to conduct inspections to verify that countries correctly declared their programs.
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Iran's 2015 nuclear deal allowed Iran to enrich uranium to 3.67 per cent — enough to fuel a nuclear power plant, but far below the threshold of 90 per cent needed for weapons-grade uranium. It also drastically reduced Iran's stockpile of uranium, limited its use of centrifuges and relied on the IAEA to oversee Tehran's compliance through additional oversight. The IAEA served as the main assessor of Iran's commitment to the deal.
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But Trump, in his first term in 2018, unilaterally withdrew Washington from the accord, insisting it wasn't tough enough and didn't address Iran's missile program or its support for militant groups in the wider Middle East. That set in motion years of tensions, including attacks at sea and on land.
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Iran had been enriching up to 60 per cent, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels. It also has enough of a stockpile to build multiple nuclear bombs, should it choose to do so. Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the IAEA, Western intelligence agencies and others say Tehran had an organized weapons program up until 2003.
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Israeli airstrikes, which began June 13, decimated the upper ranks of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard and targeted its arsenal of ballistic missiles. The strikes also hit Iran's nuclear sites, which Israel claimed put Tehran within reach of a nuclear weapon.
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