At the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Board of Governors meeting on Thursday, the US threatened to take action against Tehran for not complying with an inspection clause of the Iran nuclear deal.
Earlier this year, Iran stopped voluntarily complying with the Additional Protocol, an aspect of the JCPOA that allows the IAEA to conduct snap inspections. The IAEA is demanding that Iran cooperates with the Additional Protocol, but Tehran has no obligation to since the US withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018.
Unsurprisingly, this crucial context is missing from the US statement. “If Iran’s non-cooperation is not immediately remedied … the Board will have no choice but to reconvene in extraordinary session before the end of this year in order to address the crisis,” said Louis Bono, the US envoy in Vienna.
On Friday, Russia’s envoy in Vienna denounced the US statement. “I don’t welcome this particular statement of the US delegation. It’s not helpful,” said Mikhail Ulyanov. “The US did not negotiate with the Iranians for a very long time and forgot that Iranians don’t do anything under pressure. If they are under pressure, they resist,” he added.
Ulyanov said the US statement could hurt the upcoming negotiations to revive the JCPOA, which will resume in Vienna on Monday after a long pause. Iran has no reason to cut any deals with the IAEA over the Additional Protocol at this time since the current situation can be used as leverage over the US.
Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said Thursday that the IAEA has a Western bias and doesn’t treat Iran properly. He said the nuclear watchdog is “under the influence of powerful countries” which “finance them and in exchange apply pressure on them.” Iran has previously called out the IAEA for scrutinizing its civilian nuclear program so much while ignoring Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program.
Well said!
The US had world support. It has now lost that support, from Russia and China quite openly, and from the EU as it shies away.
As for the selective blindness concerning Israel, that is likely to continue only so long as the US as most willingly blind is leader.
If others step up to replace the US in regional influence, the constant Israeli outrages are not likely to fall into the same void.
Israel’s monomaniacal behavior is digging that hole it might fall into, deeper and deeper, steeper and steeper, the edge crumbling away under them.
How many times have we pretended to still be in the deal? Taking up where Pompeo left off.
The USA wants to ignore all international laws and any human decency too.
For US international or any other law is what the Zionists dictate to them
International law HA HA HA! Never addressed Arabs mistreatment or murder of Jews.
U.S. – We get all the benefits of your compliance and YOU GET NOTHING.
His master’s voice. Zionists talk through underling which is known by the name United States of America. Zionists want to wreck any possible agreement on nuclear talks. And they will get what they want
The JCPOA is dead as disco. Joe “I’m a Zionist” Biden never intended to rejoin it. Iran is wasting its time. Derailing the JCPOA is just another move to ramp up PR for an Iran war.
The only reason the US isn’t at war with Iran by now is that Israel can’t afford the war until Hezbollah is dealt with – and Israel can’t do that by itself. So until it gets the US involved – which is what the Beirut port explosion, all the Hezbollah sanctions, and other Lebanese crises, are all about – the Iran war is on hold.
Beirut port explosion? If a comet falls to earth do you blame?HA!
The fear among the intelligence agencies in the U.S. is that Iran may just say “f*ck it!” and back out of the NPT, go full centrifuge.
Meh?. Another day of unchallenged pathetic imperial hypocrisy.