The US, UK, France and Germany issued this week a joint statement condemning Iran for its latest nuclear steps reported by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The IAEA report stated Iran had reversed a months-long slowdown in the production rate of highly enriched uranium up to 60 percent purity at its Natanz and Fordow nuclear plants.
In their statement, the four countries described the IAEA findings as representing “a backwards step by Iran and will result in Iran tripling its monthly production rate of uranium enriched up to 60 percent” and condemned this action which “add to the unabated escalation of Iran’s nuclear programme.”
‘’The production of high-enriched uranium by Iran has no credible civilian justification and the reported production at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant and the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant further carries significant proliferation-related risks. We also take note of Iran’s decision to revert to the same cascade configuration as the one discovered by the IAEA in Fordow earlier this year. Iran’s delay in declaring this change in January 2023 cast serious doubts on Iran’s willingness to cooperate with the IAEA in full transparency,’’ the statement said.
‘’These decisions demonstrate Iran’s lack of good will towards de-escalation and represent reckless behavior in a tense regional context,’’ it added.
‘’We urge Iran to immediately reverse these steps and de-escalate its nuclear program. Iran must fully cooperate with the IAEA to enable it to provide assurances that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful, and to re-designate the inspectors suspended in September 2023,’’ it added.
The four countries said they remain ‘’committed to a diplomatic solution and reaffirm our determination that Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon.’’
The IAEA report raises fears that Iran is slowly advancing towards achieving nuclear weapons capacity. In June, the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini said, “the West could not stop Iran from building nuclear weapons if Tehran wanted a pursue a nuclear arms programme.”
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron described Iran as a “thoroughly malign influence in the region and in the world” and that the Iranian leadership and its proxies needed to be sent an “incredibly clear message that this escalation will not be tolerated”.
According to Laurence Norman in The Wall Street Journal, Iran’s decision to triple its production rate of near-weapons-grade uranium marks the collapse of quiet diplomatic efforts between Washington and Tehran to ease tensions. ‘’It comes after a proliferation of flashpoints between the US and Iran, whose proxwies have repeatedly traded fire with US forces in the Middle East since the bloddy conflict between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7,’’ he wrote.