Chair,
On behalf of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, I thank
Director-General Grossi for his latest report on Iran's nuclear
programme.
As always, we commend the Agency's professional, independent and
impartial work and their objective reporting. Unfortunately, the
Agency's findings are, once again, highly concerning.
Iran's enriched uranium stockpile has further expanded over the
current reporting period. Iran has increased its stockpile of
uranium enriched up to 60 %. It now has well over four IAEA
significant quantities of uranium enriched up 60%, which the IAEA
defines as the approximate amount of nuclear material from which
the possibility of manufacturing a nuclear explosive device
cannot be excluded. Its overall stockpile of enriched uranium is
now over 32 times the limit Iran committed to in the JCPoA.
Over the past five months, Iran has also substantially expanded
its overall production capacity by installing and operating new
advanced centrifuges; in the reporting period, it has installed
six additional cascades of advanced centrifuges at Fuel
Enrichment Plant (FEP) in Natanz, thus further enhancing its
enrichment capacity.
Iran continues obstructing the work of the IAEA, which has had
detrimental implications for the Agency's ability to effectively
verify and monitor Iran's nuclear programme and to provide
assurance of the programme's exclusively peaceful nature:
As a result of this lack of transparency, the Agency has lost
continuity of knowledge in relation to the production and
inventory of centrifuges, rotors and bellows, heavy water and
uranium ore concentrate, as the DG reiterates in his
report.
In addition, Iran is upholding its politically motivated
de-designation of several experienced Agency inspectors, which
seriously affects the Agency's ability to conduct its
verification in Iran, particularly at the enrichment facilities.
Iran has now offered to consider “the acceptance of the
designation of four additional experienced inspectors”. Even if
that consideration becomes a reality, it will still not fully
compensate the loss of Agency expertise in this field.
The DG's report also notes that it has been more than three years
since Iran stopped provisionally applying its Additional
Protocol, depriving the Agency of complementary access to any
sites and other locations in Iran.
Chair,
In his latest report, the DG references discussions about Iran
halting expanding its stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60%. If
Iran were to stop enriching uranium up to 60%, this would
constitute a step that is long overdue. Enrichment to such levels
not only is a blatant violation of Iran's commitments under the
JCPoA; but, as the DG again states in his report, Iran is the
only state without nuclear weapons in the world to do so. We
should also remain vigilant that even if Iran were to proceed
with this measure, Iran would still retain an excessively large
stockpile of high enriched uranium as well the capability to
resume enrichment to 60% at any point. We therefore call on Iran
to not only offer halting high-level enrichment but to
immediately dispose of its high enriched uranium
stockpile.
Chair,
Let us be clear: Iran's choices and decisions regarding its
nuclear activities are the source of this long-standing
proliferation crisis. It is Iran that has escalated this
situation by further departing from its JCPoA commitments. We
therefore urge Iran to:
-
Halt and reverse its nuclear escalation and refrain from
making threats to produce nuclear weapons;
-
Return to the limits imposed by the JCPoA, in particular
those regarding enrichment;
-
Implement the Iran-IAEA March 2023 Joint statement and the
commitments it made regarding transparency and cooperation
with the IAEA including re-applying all transparency measures
that it stopped in February 2021;
-
Allow the Agency to install surveillance and monitoring
equipment where requested;
-
Re-implement and swiftly ratify its Additional Protocol;
and
-
Fully reverse its September 2023 decision to withdraw the
designations of experienced inspectors.
Chair,
Iran's behaviour in the nuclear realm is a threat to
international security and undermines the global
non-proliferation system. We recall that in 2022, Iran twice
refused a negotiated outcome and instead chose to escalate and
expand its nuclear programme to alarming levels. The
international community must remain firm in its determination to
prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and we stand ready
to use all diplomatic levers to achieve this goal.
The latest statements, including by high-ranking officials, about
Iran's purported technical capability to produce nuclear weapons
and the possibility of changing its so-called nuclear doctrine
are contrary to Iran's commitments under the JCPoA and its
preamble and are incompatible with Iran's status as a
non-nuclear-weapon state under the NPT.
We ask the Director General to keep the Board of Governors
informed on the status of Iran's nuclear programme by periodical
and, if deemed necessary, extraordinary reporting. We ask for
this report to be made public.
Thank you.
