U.N. Agency: Iran ‘Stonewalling’ Nuclear Inspectors
Iran's nuclear program is once again raising concerns among members of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who claim in a new report that, despite earlier signs of cooperation this year, Tehran is leaving key questions unanswered about possible plans to ramp up its uranium enrichment capabilities by the end of this summer.Iran’s nuclear program is once again raising concerns among members of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who claim in a new report that, despite earlier signs of cooperation this year, Tehran is leaving key questions unanswered about possible plans to ramp up its uranium enrichment capabilities by the end of this summer.
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“Iran has not provided the agency with all the information, access to documents and access to individuals necessary to support Iran’s statements [that its activities are purely peaceful in intent],” the IAEA report said.
“The agency is of the view that Iran may have additional information, in particular on high explosives testing and missile-related activities which… Iran should share with the agency.
An unnamed “senior UN official” in Vienna told Reuters news agency:
“We have not got substantive answers and we could have gotten those earlier. It’s up to Iran [now].”
Gregory Schulte, the chief US delegate to the IAEA, said the report had detailed a “long list of questions that Iran has failed to answer”.
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Mainstream outlets’ coverage of U.S.-Iran relations are augmenting the Trump administration’s provocations at a critical moment.
On Monday, a Russian ship carrying almost all of Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium left Iran, “fulfilling a major step in the nuclear deal struck last summer and, for the first time in nearly a decade, apparently leaving Iran with too little fuel to manufacture a nuclear weapon,” The New York Times reports.
The White House announced Sunday that Iran will start whittling down its stockpile of enriched uranium by Jan. 20, giving a sense of momentum to the agreement announced in November between Washington and Tehran.
Two days of discussion over Iran’s nuclear program ended in uncertainty Thursday, with Iran maintaining it has the right to enrich nuclear fuel and the lead negotiator for the European Union stating vaguely that “significant problems remain” with the Iranian position. Negotiations are set to resume in June.
Iran has officially declared that it has created its first domestically produced piece of raw uranium, otherwise deceptively known as non-edible yellowcake, and has subsequently delivered that uranium to a plant for enrichment.
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