The U.S. State Department looked on Monday to delink any reported connection between Israel’s weekend strikes on Iran and the decision by an atomic watchdog’s leadership to censure the Islamic Republic in the hours prior.
On June 12, the 35-member board of governors of the United Nations-linked International Atomic Energy Agency adopted a resolution declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time since 2005.
The resolution censured Iran for failing repeatedly to provide clear information about undeclared nuclear material and activities found at multiple locations. Tehran responded with an announcement that it would open a new uranium enrichment facility, enhance the centrifuges it uses at its Fordow plant and limit cooperation with the IAEA.
The censure opened the door for the U.N. Security Council to trigger snapback sanctions on Iran. Those sanctions were lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal inked by the Obama administration. While U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the pact in 2018, France, Germany and the United Kingdom—all signatories to the original accord—have signaled they are open to reissuing sanctions, with Paris and London on the Security Council as permanent members.
At an emergency IAEA session called on Monday to address Israel’s actions, a State Department official said the decision by the board “to find Iran in noncompliance with its safeguards agreement was appropriate, necessary and long overdue.”
McCoy Pitt, senior bureau official at the department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs, told those at the meeting in Vienna that the announcement by Tehran hardly represents “the actions of a state seeking to quell doubts about its intentions. Such actions will only add to international uncertainty regarding the possible diversion of nuclear material in Iran.”
He said Iran must “fully implement its obligations under its safeguards agreement” and reminded the Islamic Republic “of its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty not to manufacture or acquire nuclear weapons.” (Iran threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if sanctions were snapped back into place.)
Pitt reiterated the longstanding American position that “there is no credible civilian justification for Iran to enrich” uranium to the levels noted in the IAEA’s latest report, which triggered the censure, “let alone accumulate such a large stockpile.”
Though he stated that IAEA leadership “does not bear any responsibility for Israel’s actions,” nor was the resolution adopted last week “connected to Israel’s actions in any way,” Pitt reaffirmed “Israel’s right under international law to defend itself.”
“Israel has violated no agreement with the IAEA, and it has certainly not violated the provisions of the statute,” he stated.
