Iran’s defense against an IAEA Board resolution and UNSC snapback

Maziar Motamedi of Al Jazeera reported on June 10 that Behrouz Kamalvandi, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told Iranian state television late June 9 that the country will have a “proportionate” response to any action against it by Western countries, as well as the IAEA: “If we wanted to reduce our cooperation, the agency would not be able to carry out its duties. We have cooperated beyond our duties, and if the agency does not appreciate that, we will degrade cooperation to its normal levels,”.

The European signatories to JCPOA could activate a “snapback” mechanism that would reinstate all United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran lifted as part of the agreement. A strongly worded resolution at this week’s IAEA Board meeting could pave the way for that to happen. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi again warned this week that such a move would signal “another major strategic mistake” on the part of France, Germany and the UK.

Reduce to “normal levels” of cooperation? What are they thinking of doing? Now they are not cooperating at all on JCPOA measures. And now they are not cooperating fully under their NPT safeguards agreement. What we want from them is to increase their cooperation to the normal level under an NPT safeguards agreement, which today means cooperating fully under their CSA and their Additional Protocol, the NPT safeguards norm.

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