The move seemed to be a new intimidation technique just before the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors, meeting in Vienna, passed a resolution to condemn Iran by Western nations. The condemnation deals with what the watchdog refers to as Iran’s failure to provide “credible information” over nuclear material found at undeclared sites across the country.
However, Iran’s latest move, announced by state television, makes it even more challenging for inspectors to monitor Tehran’s nuclear program. Nonproliferation experts have cautioned Iran now has enough uranium enriched close to weapons-grade levels to pursue an atomic bomb if it decides to do so.
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The state TV report, later cited by other Iranian media, said authorities halted the “beyond-safeguards'' cameras of the measuring Online Enrichment Monitor ... and flowmeter.” That apparently refers to the IAEA’s online monitors that watch the enrichment of uranium gas through piping at enrichment facilities.
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In 2016, the IAEA said it installed the device for the first time in Iran’s underground Natanz nuclear facility, its main enrichment site, located some 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of the capital, Tehran. The device allowed for “around-the-clock monitoring” of the facility’s cascades, a series of centrifuges hooked together to rapidly spin uranium gas to enrich it.
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“Traditional methods of sampling and analysis can take three weeks or longer, mostly because of the time it takes to ship the sample from Iran to the IAEA’s laboratories in Austria,” the agency said at the time.
Iran is also enriching uranium at its underground Fordow facility, though the IAEA is not known to have installed these devices there.
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“The Islamic Republic of Iran has so far had extensive cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency,” state TV said in its report Wednesday. “Unfortunately, the agency, without considering this cooperation ... not only did not appreciate this cooperation, but also considered it a duty of Iran.”
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Tehran said its civilian nuclear arm, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, monitored the shutdown of the cameras. It said 80% of the existing cameras are IAEA “safeguard” cameras and they will resume operating as before. Safeguards refer to the IAEA’s inspections and monitoring of a country’s nuclear program.
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The Vienna-based IAEA declined to comment immediately. However, Iran’s move came after IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi criticized Iran for failing to provide “credible information” about unexplained nuclear material discovered at three undeclared Iranian sites — long a point of contention between the agency and Tehran.
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