‘Fatal blow’ to Iran nuke deal

Agencies | Vienna     

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Iran yesterday dealt a near-fatal blow to chances of reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal as it began removing essentially all the International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring equipment installed under the deal, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said.

Iran had warned of retaliation if the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution drafted by the United States, France, Britain and Germany criticising Tehran for its continued failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites.

The resolution was passed by a crushing majority late yesterday. Iran informed the agency overnight that it plans to remove 27 IAEA cameras and other equipment as of yesterday, which was “basically all” the extra monitoring equipment installed under the 2015 deal going beyond Iran’s core obligations to the agency, Grossi told a news conference called at short notice.

That leaves a window of opportunity of three to four weeks to restore some of the monitoring that is being scrapped or else the IAEA will lose the ability to piece together all or essentially all Iran’s most important nuclear activities and material, and restoring the deal requires that, Grossi said.

“I think this would be a fatal blow (to reviving the deal),” Grossi said of what would happen if nothing were done within that window of opportunity. He added, however, that more than 40 IAEA cameras would continue to operate as part of the core monitoring of Iran’s activities that predates the 2015 deal.