UN nuclear agency draft resolution accusing Iran of failing to meet obligations

Vienna: Western nations are planning to table a resolution at a meeting of the UN’s nuclear agency that will find Iran in non-compliance with its so-called safeguards obligations for the first time in 20 years, a senior western diplomat said Thursday. The move comes at a sensitive time as US President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to reach a deal with Tehran to limit its nuclear program. The two sides have held several rounds of talks, so far without agreement.

The draft resolution will be jointly tabled by France, the U.K. and Germany, known as the E3, together with the United States, the senior Western diplomat said.

Consulting European allies: In Washington, the State Department said the Trump administration was consulting with European allies about the next step.

“We are coordinating with our partners on our posture for the June 9-13 IAEA Board of Governors meeting and are considering all of our options,” the department said. “We continue to have serious concerns about Iran’s nuclear program and its longstanding failure to uphold its safeguards obligations.”

In an April 2024 report, the U.S. State Department assessed that Iran’s “unwillingness to provide adequate responses to the IAEA’s questions regarding potential undeclared nuclear material and activities” constitutes “a violation of its obligation to accept safeguards under Article III of the NPT Treaty.”

The draft resolution, which was seen by The Associated Press, says: “Iran’s many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran ... constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement.”

The draft resolution furthermore finds that the IAEA’s “inability ... to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful gives rise to questions that are within the competence of the United Nations

Security Council, as the organ bearing the main responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.”