The International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report showing that Iran is continuing to violate its nuclear deal restrictions, including enriching and stockpiling uranium.
The confidential IAEA report was released on Friday and given to member countries. The watchdog said that Iran is in violation of all the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’s restrictions, according to the Associated Press, which viewed a copy of the report.
Iran has, as of May 20, accumulated a stockpile of about 1.73 tons of low-enriched uranium. That figure is up from the 1.1 tons documented in February and a violation of the treaty, which only allows the country to stockpile up to 447 pounds. U.N. investigators found that Iran is also continuing to violate restrictions on enrichment, with the country pushing the purity of the radioactive ore up to 4.5%, an increase from the 3.67% allowed under the JCPOA.
Iran and the United States signed the deal in 2015, along with Germany, France, Britain, China, and Russia. President Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the pact in 2018 and began a “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at squeezing Iran’s economy in order to force the country into submission. Since then, Iran has increasingly violated the original strictures of the deal.
Additionally, the U.N. team said it was not granted access to two sites where the country might have conducted undeclared nuclear activity or storage of nuclear material. The IAEA raised concerns about the sites, including a third that it said underwent “extensive sanitization and leveling” in the early 2000s and would not have value in inspecting. The other two sites are also thought to have been used more than a decade ago, but Iran has blocked inspectors from investigating the sites for months.
A spokesperson with the State Department told the Washington Examiner that although they couldn’t discuss the details of the IAEA report until it is made public, “Iran should follow the calls of the international community to return to its nuclear commitments or face the consequences of even deeper and broader sanctions.”
“Iran continues to expand its proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities in a transparent attempt to generate negotiating leverage and extort the international community. These provocations will not work,” the spokesperson said. “President Trump made clear we will continue imposing maximum pressure on the Iranian regime until it ceases its destabilizing activities and negotiates a comprehensive deal.”
After details of the report emerged, the Washington Examiner was provided a statement from Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the Washington, D.C., office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a leading dissident group that advocates for regime change.
Jafarzadeh said that the report is a “clear indication that Tehran never abandoned its nuclear weapons program, despite the JCPOA. This regime should have never been allowed any enrichment capabilities, nor provided any ability to do nuclear-related research and development under any pretexts.”
“All pathways of the Iranian regime to fissile material must be irreversibly blocked and the ballistic missile program, the purpose of which is to carry a nuclear warhead, must be entirely dismantled,” he added.
The report comes just months after Iran and the U.S. reached the point of open conflict. In January, the U.S. carried out a drone strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani. Iran responded by firing a barrage of missiles at Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops, resulting in several brain injuries.
Tensions again ratcheted up after an April incident where 11 Iranian naval vessels approached a group of U.S. ships in the region. The Navy called the approaches “unsafe” and “unprofessional,” and after the incident, Trump said he ordered the Navy to destroy any Iranian boats that attempt similar maneuvers in the future.
