Iran’s president ‘halts co-operation with UN nuclear watchdog’

Satellite image showing the Fordo enrichment facility in Iran (Maxar Technologies/AP)

Iran’s president has reportedly ordered the country to suspend its co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency after US air strikes hit its most-important nuclear facilities.

State media reported the decision by Masoud Pezeshkian.

It follows a law passed by Iran’s parliament to suspend that co-operation.

It was not immediately clear what that would mean for the IAEA, the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

The IAEA, based in Vienna, has monitored Iran’s nuclear programme for years.

Masoud Pezeshkian (Iranian Presidency Office/AP)

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council is to oversee the bill and implementation. While the council itself has not said anything publicly, Mr Pezeshkian is the head of the body so his reported order signals that the bill would be implemented.

However, under Iran’s theocractic government, there is room for the council to implement the bill as they see fit. That means that everything legislators asked for might not be done.

Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, negotiated under then US president Barack Obama, allowed Iran to enrich uranium to 3.67% — enough to fuel a nuclear power plant but far below the threshold of 90% 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.

But Donald Trump, in his first term as US president in 2018, unilaterally withdrew Washington from the accord, insisting it was not tough enough and did not address Iran’s missile programme 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.

Iran had been enriching up to 60%, 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 programme is for peaceful purposes, but the IAEA, western intelligence agencies and others say Tehran had an organised weapons programmme up until 2003.