VIENNA (AP) — The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said Thursday that Iran is removing 27 surveillance cameras from nuclear facilities in the country, raising the risk that its inspectors will be unable to track Tehran’s progress as it gets closer to uranium than ever enriched in weapons -class levels.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, made the comments at a hastily called press conference in Vienna while standing next to an example of the cameras installed across Iran.
Grossi said the move posed a “serious challenge” to its efforts and warned it would not be able to maintain a “continuity of knowledge” about the Iranian program in three to four weeks.
“This would be a fatal blow” to negotiations on Iran’s ragged nuclear deal with world powers, Grossi said.
“If we lose this, everyone’s guessing,” he added.
Get the daily Times of Israel by email and never miss our headlines again
By registering you agree to the terms
Iran didn’t immediately admit it was removing the cameras, but threatened to take further steps on Wednesday amid a years-long crisis that threatens to escalate into more attacks in the Middle East.
Grossi said this would leave “40-something” cameras in Iran. Among the locations where cameras would be removed are the underground nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz, as well as the Isfahan facility, Grossi said.
“We are in a very tense situation as the (nuclear deal) negotiations are at rock bottom,” Grossi added. “Now let’s add that to the picture; as you can see, it’s not very pretty.”
Planet Labs PBC satellite imagery shows Iran’s underground Natanz nuclear site and ongoing construction to expand the facility in a nearby mountain to the south, near Natanz, Iran, May 9, 2022. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
On Wednesday, Iran said it had shut down two devices the IAEA uses to monitor enrichment at Natanz. Grossi acknowledged this, saying that among the devices that were removed were the online enrichment monitor and the flow meter. These observe the enrichment of uranium gas through pipelines in enrichment plants.
Iran’s decision comes as the IAEA board chided Tehran for the Islamic Republic’s failure to provide “credible information” about man-made nuclear materials found in three undeclared locations in the country.
The IAEA said earlier Thursday Grossi told members that Iran had informed the agency that it was planning to install two new cascades of IR-6s at Natanz. A cascade is a series of centrifuges linked together to spin uranium gas to enrich it.
An IR-6 centrifuge spins uranium ten times faster than the first-generation centrifuges that Iran was once restricted to under its nuclear deal with world powers. According to the IAEA, Iran had already filmed a cascade of IR-6s at its underground facility in Fordo in February.
Iran previously said it plans to install a cascade of IR-6s at Natanz. The IAEA said it “verified” the ongoing installation of that cascade on Monday, while the newly promised two new cascades have not yet started.
Centrifuge machines at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant in central Iran, in an image released on November 5, 2019. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP, File)
Iran and world powers agreed on the 2015 nuclear deal, under which Tehran drastically curtailed its uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. In 2018, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the deal, escalating tensions across the Middle East and sparking a series of attacks and incidents.
Talks in Vienna about the disrupted nuclear deal with Iran have stalled since April. Since the deal’s collapse, Iran has operated advanced centrifuges and has a rapidly growing stockpile of enriched uranium.
Non-proliferation experts warn that Iran has been enriching uranium to 60% purity – a short technical step from a 90% weapons-grade level – to create a nuclear weapon should it decide to do so.
Iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes, although UN experts and Western intelligence agencies say Iran had an organized military nuclear program until 2003.
Building a nuclear bomb would still cost Iran more time in pursuit of a weapon, analysts say, although they warn Tehran’s advances are making the program more dangerous. Israel has threatened in the past that it would launch a pre-emptive strike to stop Iran – and is already suspected in a string of recent assassinations of Iranian officials.
An International Atomic Energy Agency inspector sets up surveillance equipment at Iran’s uranium conversion plant, just outside the city of Isfahan, Iran, August 8, 2005 (AP Photo/Mehdi Ghasemi, ISNA, file)
Iran has been holding IAEA surveillance camera footage since February 2021 as leverage to restore the nuclear deal. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, which runs its civilian nuclear program, released a video showing its workers shutting down both regular and backup battery power for two IAEA cameras on Wednesday.
The no-confidence motion sponsored by Germany, France, Britain and the US at the IAEA meeting in Vienna was passed with the support of 30 out of 35 governors. Russia and China voted against it, Russian Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov wrote on Twitter. India, Libya and Pakistan abstained.
After the vote, a joint statement by France, Germany, the UK and the US said the censorship “is sending a clear message to Iran that it must honor its security obligations and provide technically credible clarifications on outstanding security issues.”
The Iranian foreign ministry, meanwhile, criticized the rebuke as a “political, incorrect and unconstructive action”.
An Iranian official had previously warned IAEA officials that Tehran was now considering taking “other measures” as well.
“We hope they will come to their senses and respond to Iran’s cooperation with cooperation,” said Behrouz Kamalvandi, an Iranian nuclear spokesman. “It is unacceptable that they engage in inappropriate behavior while Iran continues to cooperate.”
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett hailed the vote as “a momentous decision that reveals the true colors of Iran.”
“The IAEA vote is a clear warning light for Iran: if Iran continues its activities, the leading countries must bring the matter back to the UN Security Council,” said Bennett, who made an unannounced trip to the United Arab Emirates on Thursday .
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (left) meets with UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi on June 9, 2022 (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian called the US “the culprit in Iran’s nuclear crisis” and called on America to “react positively to the legitimate concerns of the Iranian side.”
Wednesday night, a drone exploded in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil in its Kurdish region, slightly injuring three people and damaging cars and a nearby restaurant, officials said. The Kurdistan Region Counter-Terrorism Directorate-General on Thursday claimed that Iran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah or Hezbollah Brigades launched the drone.