IAEA Board of Governors on the JCPoA, March 2024: E3 statement

France, Germany and the UK (E3) gave a joint statement to the IAEA Board of Governors on Iran’s implementation of its nuclear commitments under the JCPoA.

From: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Ambassador Götz Schmidt-Bremme, German permanent representative to the IAEA on behalf of E3

Chair, On behalf of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, I thank Director General Grossi for his latest report GOV/2024/7, and Deputy Director General Aparo for his technical briefing.

We are grateful to the Agency for the professional and impartial work of their team of inspectors and for their objective reporting on Iran’s nuclear programme. We encourage the Director General to keep the Board informed of all activities and developments requiring clarification by Iran.

Regrettably, the IAEA’s report again confirms that Iran continues on its escalatory path, in increasing violation of its JCPoA commitments. Over the past five years, Iran has pushed its nuclear activities to new heights that are unprecedented for a state without a nuclear weapons programme. Iran continues to refuse to reverse the de-designation of Agency inspectors and is failing to implement the Joint Statement of 4 March 2023. These actions cast reasonable doubt on Iran’s willingness to fully live up to its obligation and commitment to cooperate with the IAEA. This is shown by the IAEA not being able to provide assurance of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.

Chair, In the reporting period, Iran has continued enriching uranium far beyond what it committed to in the JCPoA. It now possesses 27 times the JCPoA limit of enriched uranium. The recent slight reduction of the stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60 % should not lead us to false hope and wrong conclusions: enrichment up to 60 % has continued unabatedly; increasing rates of production will soon see the stockpile increase again: and downblending has amplified the sharp increase of the stockpile of uranium enriched up to 20 %. Overall, Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium has increased by 30 % in just three and half months. Iran likely now has about three significant quantities of highly enriched uranium. The IAEA defines a significant quantity as the approximate amount of nuclear material from which the possibility of manufacturing a nuclear explosive device cannot be excluded.

Iran has also installed yet more advanced centrifuges and has laid ground for a further expansion of its enrichment capabilities, including at the underground Fordow site. We recall the significant work previously reported by the IAEA on uranium metal, which is a key step for the development of a nuclear weapon, and takes Iran dangerously close to actual weapons-related activity.

Furthermore, DG Grossi rightly reports that Iran has taken no meaningful steps to implement the Joint Statement. We note that Iran has taken no substantial action in response to the DG’s request to re-designate experienced Agency inspectors. Combined with Iran’s continued nonapplication of the Additional Protocol, this action by Iran seriously affects the IAEA’s verification and monitoring capabilities and activities. The DG states in his report that, Iran’s continued lack of transparency and its active rejection of verification measures provided for in the JCPoA means the Agency has definitively lost continuity of knowledge in a variety of fields. The IAEA does not know, for example, how many centrifuges Iran has and where they may be located. This information gap has had detrimental implications for the Agency’s ability to provide assurance of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.

Chair, The E3 have consistently worked towards a diplomatic solution that would permit Iran to return to full compliance with its international obligations and JCPoA commitments. Iran failed to prove its readiness for such a negotiated outcome by refusing reasonable proposals that were put on the table in March 2022 and again in August 2022, and has instead chosen to further advance its nuclear programme. We reiterate our call on Iran to halt its nuclear escalation. We strongly urge Iran to return to the limits imposed by the JCPoA, in particular regarding enrichment capabilities and activities; and to finally live up to the commitments it has made regarding transparency and cooperation with the IAEA necessary for effective verification and monitoring. We also urge Iran to re-apply all transparency measures that it stopped in February 2021 and that were agreed to in the 4 March 2023 Joint Statement between Iran and the IAEA, as well as to re-implement and swiftly ratify its Additional Protocol. Iran must now take serious and meaningful steps that show a genuine desire to de-escalate and to rebuild urgently needed trust between Iran and the international community. Recent public statements made in Iran regarding its technical capabilities to produce nuclear weapons go in the opposite direction and are all the more concerning and inconsistent with Iran’s legal obligations under the NPT.

Chair, The DG’s report makes very clear that Iran’s nuclear advances significantly harm international security and undermine the global non-proliferation architecture. We will continue consultations, alongside international partners, on how best to address increasing doubts about the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme. We remain committed to a diplomatic solution and stand ready to use all diplomatic levers available to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Finally, we ask the Director General to keep the Board of Governors informed on the status of Iran’s nuclear programme well ahead of the next meeting in June 2024, and provide earlier updates as necessary. We also ask for the report to be made public.