By STEPHANIE LIECHTENSTEIN, Associated Press<\/p>\n
VIENNA (AP) \u2014 The U.N. atomic watchdog\u2019s board on Wednesday reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council for the first time in 20 years for failure to cooperate in a long-running investigation into uranium traces detected by inspectors at various undeclared sites in Iran.<\/p>\n
Twenty-three countries on the IAEA\u2019s 35-member board of governors voted for the resolution at IAEA headquarters in Vienna.<\/p>\n
China, Russia and Niger opposed it, while eight countries abstained and one didn\u2019t vote as it was in arrears, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the outcome of the closed-door vote.<\/p>\n
The resolution was put forward by the United States, Britain, France and Germany.<\/p>\n
The diplomatic move has been under consideration since June 2025, when the IAEA board\u00a0found Iran officially in noncompliance<\/a>\u00a0with its nonproliferation obligations because of Tehran\u2019s lack of cooperation in a long-running investigation into uranium traces detected by inspectors at various undeclared sites in Iran.<\/p>\n Western officials suspect that the uranium traces could provide further evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until 2003.<\/p>\n Iran says that it\u2019s not pursuing nuclear weapons, and its program is entirely peaceful.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s referral to the U.N. Security Council comes amid a further escalation in the U.S. war with Iran.<\/p>\n The U.S. this week destroyed five Iranian oil tankers and Tehran hit back at American targets in Jordan, the latest burst of back-and-forth strikes that have lurched the sides back toward open hostilities in a more than 6-month-old war.<\/p>\n Reporting Iran to the U.N. Security Council now shifts the responsibility to a higher authority that is able to enact further measures, including sanctions or asset freezes.<\/p>\n But specific punitive measures by the U.N. are unlikely in this case since Iran\u2019s allies Russia and China hold veto power on the U.N. Security Council.<\/p>\n The draft resolution, which was seen by The Associated Press, requested the IAEA director general Rafael Grossi \u201cto report this resolution and the previously adopted resolutions \u2026 to all Members of the Agency and to the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the IAEA Statute.\u201d<\/p>\n The resolution also reiterated its call upon Iran \u201cto urgently remedy its non-compliance with its Safeguards Agreement by taking all steps deemed necessary by the Agency and the Board, so that the Director General can provide the necessary assurances regarding \u2026 the non-diversion of nuclear material.\u201d<\/p>\n Since Israel and the U.S. struck Iran\u2019s nuclear sites during the 12-day war in June 2025, Iran\u00a0hasn\u2019t given IAEA inspectors access<\/a>\u00a0to nuclear sites that were affected by the strikes.<\/p>\n The IAEA also has been unable to verify the status of the stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium since the June bombing.<\/p>\n According to the IAEA<\/a>, Iran maintains a stockpile of 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60% purity \u2014 a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.<\/p>\n That stockpile could allow Iran to build as many as 10 nuclear bombs, should it decide to weaponize its program, IAEA chief Grossi warned in\u00a0an interview last year with the AP<\/a>. He said that it doesn\u2019t mean that Iran has such a weapon.<\/p>\n The Associated Press receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s\u00a0standards<\/a>\u00a0for working with philanthropies, a\u00a0list<\/a>\u00a0of supporters and funded coverage areas at\u00a0AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By STEPHANIE LIECHTENSTEIN, Associated Press VIENNA (AP) \u2014 The U.N. atomic watchdog\u2019s board on Wednesday reported Iran to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[34,2828,32070,224],"class_list":["post-285676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-iran","tag-iran-nuclear-program","tag-un-nuclear-watchdog","tag-us-iran-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117242132230468373","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}