NPT Safeguards Agreement with Iran: E3 statement to the IAEA

On behalf of France, Germany and the UK, the German Ambassador to the IAEA, Götz Schmidt-Bremme, gave a joint statement to the Board of Governors on Iran's implementation of its obligations under its NPT Safeguards Agreement

From:

Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and German Ambassador to the IAEA, on behalf of E3

5 June 2024 (Transcript of the speech, exactly as it was delivered)

Chair,

France, Germany, and the United Kingdom thank Director General Grossi for his report on the implementation of Iran's NPT Safeguards Agreement.

We commend the DG and the Secretariat for their continued professional, independent and impartial verification of Iran's safeguards obligations, including the Agency's repeated efforts to engage Iran to clarify information regarding the “correctness and completeness” of its declarations under its NPT Safeguards Agreement. Due to Iran's prolonged failure to address outstanding safeguards issues, the Agency is once again unable to assure that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful.

Chair,

In his report, the DG once again reports that Iran has provided no technically credible explanations regarding the outstanding safeguards investigations into Turquzabad and Varamin, over five years since these investigations began. This is contrary to both Iran's legal obligations under its NPT Safeguards Agreement and Iran's commitments under the Joint Statement of March 2023 to cooperate with the Agency and provide further information. We also note the Agency's assessment of the nuclear material discrepancy at the Esfahan Uranium Conversion Facility and recognise that the material balance of the uranium involved in uranium metal production experiments conducted at Jabr Bin Hayan Laboratories included an amount of nuclear material unaccounted for, “which cannot be explained by accountancy measurement errors.” This is of particular concern as undeclared uranium metal experiments were conducted at the same laboratories in Iran between 1995 and 2002. We take note of the Agency's ongoing evaluations related to the uranium metal production experiments.

As long as such cases exist and are not fully clarified, there remains reasonable doubt about the nature of Iran's nuclear activities.

We are especially concerned by Iran's continued refusal to apply Modified Code 3.1, which is a legal obligation that Iran cannot unilaterally suspend or modify. Iran is the only State with significant nuclear activities that is not implementing Modified Code 3.1 as part of its NPT Safeguards Agreement. This refusal prevents the Agency from obtaining early design information for new nuclear facilities necessary to prepare its safeguards approach, and leaves it reliant on open-source information in the absence of formal declarations from Iran. Given Iran's recent history of undeclared nuclear facilities and past unresolved questions as well as several public statements on Iran's technical capabilities to produce nuclear weapons, Iran's action further fuels serious doubts over whether Iran's nuclear activities remain exclusively peaceful.

We also continue to regret that, despite repeated requests by the DG since last September, Iran has still not reversed the de-designation of several experienced IAEA inspectors. As the DG previously reported, Iran's extreme and unjustified decision effectively made the Agency's independent technical work subject to political interpretation. Its reversal remains essential to fully allow the Agency to conduct its verification activities in Iran effectively.

Chair, The E3 commend the DG's long-standing efforts to remain open to constructive engagement with Iran. Instead of seizing these opportunities to engage constructively with the DG to resolve all outstanding questions, Iran has consistently failed to offer any immediate concrete actions. This resolution is put forward after Iran has not reacted in substance to the previous resolution for 18 months, it comes after the cases have been unsolved for five whole years. For a very long time we have waited patiently for substantial Iranian cooperation with the Agency, but to no avail.

Chair,

We have been asking Iran for five years to engage in good faith and comply with its legal obligations. It is now time for the Board of Governors to hold Iran accountable. In order to stress the international community's resolve and to strengthen our collective support to the DG and the Agency's efforts to implement Iran's NPT Safeguards Agreement, we have tabled the draft resolution before you. As we have long called for, Iran must urgently, fully and unambiguously co-operate with the Agency, and we are determined to support the Agency to this end.

Should there be no significant change in Iran's actions in the near future, the Board must be ready to act further, including by making a finding under Article 19 of Iran's CSA. For the sake of the integrity of the international non-proliferation architecture and ultimately, global security, we cannot allow Iran to evade its NPT safeguards obligations year after year. Therefore, we call on all Governors to support this important and timely proposal.

Chair,

We once again thank the DG for his commitment and express our unwavering support to the Agency for their impartial and professional work on the issue. We encourage the DG to continue to report to the Board in a timely manner and ask for the report contained in GOV/2024/29 to be derestricted and made public.