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Iran Pres. Orders No IAEA Cooperation  07/02 06:09

    Iran's president on Wednesday ordered the country to suspend its 
cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency after American and 
Israeli airstrikes hit its most-important nuclear facilities, likely further 
limiting inspectors' ability to track Tehran's program that had been enriching 
uranium to near weapons-grade levels.

   DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Iran's president on Wednesday ordered 
the country to suspend its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy 
Agency after American and Israeli airstrikes hit its most-important nuclear 
facilities, likely further limiting inspectors' ability to track Tehran's 
program that had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels.

   The order by President Masoud Pezeshkian, however, included no timetables or 
details about what that suspension would entail. However, Iranian Foreign 
Minister Abbas Araghchi signaled in a CBS News interview that Tehran still 
would be willing to continue negotiations with the United States.

   "I don't think negotiations will restart as quickly as that," Araghchi said, 
referring to Trump's comments that talks could start as early as this week. 
However, he added: "The doors of diplomacy will never slam shut."

   Pressure tactic

   Iran has limited IAEA inspections in the past as a pressure tactic in 
negotiating with the West -- though as of right now Tehran has denied that 
there's any immediate plans to resume talks with the United States that had 
been upended by the 12-day Iran-Israel war.

   Iranian state television announced Pezeshkian's order, which followed a law 
passed by Iran's parliament to suspend that cooperation. The bill already 
received the approval of Iran's constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, 
on Thursday, and likely the support of the country's Supreme National Security 
Council, which Pezeshkian chairs.

   "The government is mandated to immediately suspend all cooperation with the 
International Atomic Energy Agency under the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of 
Nuclear Weapons and its related Safeguards Agreement," state television quoted 
the bill as saying. "This suspension will remain in effect until certain 
conditions are met, including the guaranteed security of nuclear facilities and 
scientists."

   It wasn't immediately clear what that would mean for the Vienna-based IAEA, 
the United Nations' nuclear watchdog. The agency long has monitored Iran's 
nuclear program and said that it was waiting for an official communication from 
Iran on what the suspension meant.

   Israel condemns the move

   Iran's decision drew an immediate condemnation from Israeli Foreign Minister 
Gideon Saar.

   "Iran has just issued a scandalous announcement about suspending its 
cooperation with the IAEA," he said in an X post. "This is a complete 
renunciation of all its international nuclear obligations and commitments."

   Saar urged European nations that were part of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal to 
implement its so-called snapback clause. That would reimpose all U.N. sanctions 
on it originally lifted by Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers, if one of 
its Western parties declares the Islamic Republic is out of compliance with it.

   Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle 
East, and the IAEA doesn't have access to its weapons-related facilities.

   Details remains unclear

   It's not known how Iran will implement this suspension. Iran's theocratic 
government, there is room for the council to implement the bill as they see 
fit. That means that everything lawmakers asked for might not be done.

   However, Iran's move stops short of what experts feared the most. They had 
been concerned that Tehran, in response to the war, could decide to fully end 
its cooperation with the IAEA, abandon the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and 
rush toward a bomb. That treaty has countries agree not to build or obtain 
nuclear weapons and allows the IAEA to conduct inspections to verify that 
countries correctly declared their programs.

   Iran's 2015 nuclear deal 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. The IAEA served as the main assessor 
of Iran's commitment to the deal.

   But U.S. President Donald Trump, in his first term in 2018, unilaterally 
withdrew Washington from the accord, insisting it wasn't tough enough and 
didn't address Iran's missile program 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 
program is for peaceful purposes, but the IAEA, Western intelligence agencies 
and others say Tehran had an organized weapons program up until 2003.

   Suspension comes after Israel, US airstrikes

   Israeli airstrikes, which began June 13, decimated the upper ranks of Iran's 
powerful Revolutionary Guard and targeted its arsenal of ballistic missiles. 
The strikes also hit Iran's nuclear sites, which Israel claimed put Tehran 
within reach of a nuclear weapon.

   Iran has said the Israeli attacks killed 935 "Iranian citizens," including 
38 children and 102 women. However, Iran has a long history of offering lower 
death counts around unrest over political considerations.

   The Washington-based Human Rights Activists group, which has provided 
detailed casualty figures from multiple rounds of unrest in Iran, has put the 
death toll at 1,190 people killed, including 436 civilians and 435 security 
force members. The attacks wounded another 4,475 people, the group said.

   Meanwhile, it appears that Iranian officials now are assessing the damage 
done by the American strikes conducted on the three nuclear sites on June 22, 
including those at Fordo, a site built under a mountain about 100 kilometers 
(60 miles) southwest of Tehran.

   Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press show 
Iranian officials at Fordo on Monday likely examining the damage caused by 
American bunker busters. Trucks could be seen in the images, as well as at 
least one crane and an excavator at tunnels on the site. That corresponded to 
images shot Sunday by Maxar Technologies similarly showing the ongoing work.

 
 
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