All Iran’s nuclear activities are monitored by the United Nations atomic watchdog policing its nuclear deal with major powers, its ambassador to the watchdog said yesterday, after United States President Donald Trump said it was secretly enriching uranium.
“We have nothing to hide,” Kazim Gharib Abadi told reporters after an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) 35-nation Board of Governors called by the United States.
Trump had accused Iran yesterday of secretly enriching uranium for a long time and said U.S. sanctions would be increased “substantially” soon, as the U.N. nuclear watchdog held an emergency meeting on Tehran’s breach of a nuclear deal.
Washington used the session of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors to accuse Iran of extortion after it inched past the deal’s limit on enrichment levels, while still offering to hold talks with Tehran.
“Iran has long been secretly ‘enriching,’ in total violation of the terrible 150 Billion Dollar deal made by John Kerry and the Obama Administration,” Trump said on Twitter. “Remember, that deal was to expire in a short number of years. Sanctions will soon be increased, substantially!”
While Iran was found to have had covert enrichment sites long before the nuclear accord, the deal also imposed the most intrusive nuclear supervision on Iran of any country, and there has been no serious suggestion Iran is secretly enriching now.
The deal confines enrichment in Iran to its Natanz site, which was itself exposed in 2003. Any clandestine enrichment elsewhere would be a grave breach of the deal. It was not immediately clear from Trump’s comments whether he was referring to previous, long-known activities or making a new allegation.