Iran rejects IAEA resolution, threatens more reprisal actions

Tehran: Iran’s foreign ministry called a resolution by the UN atomic watchdog’s board of governors “anti-Iranian” and threatened unspecified retaliatory actions, state media reported on Friday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday demanded that Iran fully cooperate with the agency and provide “precise information” about its stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium, as well as grant its inspectors access to Iranian nuclear sites.

A report by the official IRNA news agency on Friday quoted foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei as saying that Iran informed the Vienna-based IAEA in a letter that, in addition to ending an agreement forged over the summer in Cairo, the Iranian government could take “other actions” in response to Thursday’s resolution.

Iran suspended all cooperation with the IAEA after the war with Israel. IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi then reached an agreement with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Cairo in early September to resume inspections. Baghaei didn’t immediately elaborate on what further actions Iran would take, but further uranium enrichment by the country is a possibility. He accused the IAEA of amplifying “grudges” held against Iran by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

The minister complained that the resolution didn’t mention the reason that Iran halted inspections was because of the strikes by Israel and the US against Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.

The IAEA’s resolution sets the stage for a likely further escalation of tensions between the UN nuclear agency and Iran.