Iran said it would open a new uranium enrichment facility and increase its production of highly enriched fissile material after the U.N. atomic agency member states declared Tehran had failed to comply with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations, casting a fresh shadow over struggling U.S.-Iran nuclear talks.
Iran’s announcement comes ahead of a sixth round of nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran expected on Sunday. President Trump said on Monday he had grown less confident about striking a deal with Tehran.
The International Atomic Energy Agency board resolution, which passed by 19-3, is the first time Iran has been found in noncompliance with its nuclear duties in 20 years. The vote was called over Iran’s repeated refusal over the last six years to explain the presence of undeclared nuclear material in Iran.
Last month, the IAEA warned it couldn’t state with assurance that Iran hadn’t diverted undeclared nuclear material it had found in the country after 2018, when the U.S. pulled out of the 2015 nuclear accord, potentially for a military purpose.
The U.S. says it has no evidence Iran has decided to develop a nuclear weapon but U.S. officials say it could take Iran just a few months to do so. U.S. intelligence officials said last year it was becoming more likely Iran might decide to build a bomb and that Tehran was conducting work that could help it do so.
The IAEA vote opens the way for Iran’s nuclear work to be referred to the U.N. Security Council for action. European diplomats, who pushed the resolution alongside Washington, say that unless Iran reverses course, that would lead them later this year to reimpose the international sanctions lifted on Iran under the 2015 deal.
Iran has said that if sanctions are snapped back it could kick out inspectors and leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which obliges participants not to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran has repeatedly responded to IAEA board censures of its nuclear work by escalating its program.
In a statement from Iran’s Foreign Ministry and atomic agency immediately after the IAEA vote, Iran said that it would open a new enrichment facility and would switch all its basic centrifuges at its underground Fordow site into more advanced machines, which can enrich uranium more swiftly, Iranian media said.
Iran is already producing enough highly enriched uranium for one nuclear weapon’s worth a month, mainly at Fordow. Putting in place more advanced centrifuges there will speed that production. Tehran says its nuclear program is for entirely peaceful energy purposes but it is the only nonnuclear weapons power to be producing 60% enriched uranium.
It is not clear how long it would take Iran to open a new enrichment site. At a minimum, that is likely to take many months. There have long been concerns that Tehran intends to set up an enrichment site in tunnels it has dug deep underground at its Natanz facility.
The vote comes as the U.S. moves to draw down its presence in parts of the Middle East to essential personnel, the State Department and Pentagon said Wednesday. Iran has warned it would respond to any attack by hitting U.S. bases in the region.
Army Gen. Erik Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. military operations in the Middle East, was supposed to testify on Capitol Hill Thursday but canceled his appearance to return to Centcom headquarters in Tampa, Fla., a U.S. official said.
The U.S. and European powers say Iran’s refusal to cooperate with the probe places Tehran in breach of its basic nuclear safeguards duties under the NPT. Iran has claimed the nuclear material was there because of sabotage by Israel and others.
The three countries that opposed Thursday’s resolution were Russia, China and Burkina Faso.
The nuclear talks have stumbled over a fundamental divide between the two sides. Trump has said he wants a deal that ends Iran’s enrichment of fissile material, saying that is the only way to ensure Tehran can’t develop a nuclear weapon. Iran has made continuing enrichment its core red line over two decades of nuclear negotiations.
Iranian Defense Minister Amir Aziz Nasirzadeh said Wednesday that if “a conflict is imposed on us…all U.S. bases are within our reach and we will boldly target them in host countries.”