In this May 24, 2021 photo, the flag of Iran is seen in front of the building of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Headquarters in Vienna, Austria. (MICHAEL GRUBER/GETTY IMAGES EUROPE VIA BLOOMBERG)
HONG KONG – The United Nations nuclear watchdog’s adoption of a Western-sponsored resolution critical of Iran’s nuclear activities is based on political motives and is unsustainable, threatening to further jeopardize the 2015 nuclear pact, experts and observers say.
“Even if pressure and coercion succeed, they do not give sustainable results and are short-term at best,” said Arhama Siddiqa, a Middle East expert and research fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad in Pakistan.
She said the International Atomic Energy Agency’s resolution “seems to be a decision based on purely political motives”.
On June 8, the 35-member IAEA overwhelmingly passed a resolution censuring Iran over its noncooperation with the agency. The resolution had been proposed by the United States, Britain, France and Germany following recent IAEA reports that Iran has not provided “technically credible explanations” as to uranium particles at three undeclared sites.
A day later, Iran told the IAEA it was removing 27 surveillance cameras from its nuclear facilities. IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said that more than 40 surveillance cameras would remain in operation in Iran after the country's latest move.
READ MORE: IAEA: Iran to remove 27 cameras monitoring nuclear sites
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh called the resolution’s adoption a “political and untechnical” move.
On June 12, a statement was signed by 260 members of Iran’s Parliament condemning this “politically motivated” action resulting from what they called excessive demands by some Western states.
There is controversy regarding the recent inspection conducted by the IAEA
Manjari Singh, Associate fellow, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi
In a tweet on June 13, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, said he could not understand why the Western participants in the nuclear talks on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) “decided to put further negotiations at risk by tabling the resolution on Iran in the IAEA Board of Governors”.
Manjari Singh, an associate fellow at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies in New Delhi, told China Daily there is “controversy regarding the recent inspection conducted by the IAEA”.
Singh said the Western powers’ consensus on criticizing Iran for its lack of progress will further jeopardize the revision of the deal.
She said the chances are bleak for the JCPOA “to see the light of day” as there is still no clarity on the matter. She added that neither Iran nor the US have a clear consensus on the home front, meaning “the support of the people, the opposition, and many in the ruling government”.
Ghanem Rafeh, a researcher at Emirates Policy Center, a think tank in Abu Dhabi, said it can be argued that the US, under former president Donald Trump, “drew first blood by withdrawing from the JCPOA”.
“However, even with a new administration in the White House that has made a return to the nuclear deal a foreign policy priority, Iran is not willing to play ball, by insisting on demands that fall outside the scope of the JCPOA,” Rafeh told China Daily.
He said Iran’s “escalatory steps in the nuclear field”, such as amassing enriched uranium and disconnecting surveillance cameras at nuclear sites, was setting a “dangerous tone” for the future of the JCPOA and the Iran nuclear issue.
Iran has insisted its nuclear programs are peaceful. English-language daily newspaper Tehran Times reported on June 13 that the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said it deactivated certain IAEA cameras outside its agreement with the agency.
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Siddiqa, from ISSI, said that even though UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated the IAEA’s resolution was nothing more than recommendations and that the nuclear deal needs to be revived, the resolution will serve only to frustrate Iran further, since there was “no concrete basis” for passing it.
“Because, as evidenced by the December 2021 IAEA-Iran agreement for replacing surveillance cameras at Karaj facility and even the fact that the Vienna talks are taking place, Iran has been cooperating with the IAEA,” said Siddiqa.
In December last year, Iran and the IAEA reached an agreement on the installation of new surveillance cameras at Iran’s Karaj centrifuge component manufacturing workshop. The cameras replaced those that were removed from the Karaj facility earlier last year.
This was hailed by the IAEA as important progress for the agency’s verification and monitoring activities in Iran.
In 2015, Iran signed a deal with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, the UK and the US – plus Germany, known as the “P5+1”. But Trump withdrew the US from the deal in 2018 as he thought it was too soft on Teheran, and later imposed sanctions on Iran.
Since April 2021, eight rounds of talks have been held in Vienna, but they have stalled since mid-March due to major differences between Iran and the US.
“In order for any deal to materialize, it has to be a two-way street,” said Siddiqa.
*Xinhua contributed to this report.
Contact the writer at jan@chinadailyapac.com