Shafaq News – Tehran

Iran ended its cooperation agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), signed in Cairo, the Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday, in response to the agency’s latest resolution.

The move followed a closed-door vote by the IAEA Board of Governors, composed of 35 member states, which adopted a resolution urging Iran to promptly update the agency on the status of its enriched uranium stockpile and to provide details on nuclear sites hit in recent attacks.

In a post on X, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi noted that the Cairo framework had already lost practical relevance after the three European countries (Germany, UK and France) triggered an unsuccessful process at the UN Security Council to reinstate previously lifted resolutions.

Reza Najafi, Iran’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, said the adoption of what he called a “political and non-constructive” resolution was an attempt by the United States and the European troika to compensate for their defeat in the Snapback Mechanism in New York.

The resolution passed with 19 votes in favor, 12 abstentions, and 3 against.

According to media outlets, the document, the seventh of its kind since the closure of the Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) file in 2015, requests the IAEA Director General to provide reports on Iran’s implementation of its safeguards agreement under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty before each quarterly Board meeting, as well as updates on the status of related UN Security Council resolutions.

A joint statement issued on November 19 by eight countries, including China and Russia, urged member states to avoid politicizing Iran’s nuclear file, warning that the resolution could affect ongoing dialogue with the IAEA. The signatories noted Iran’s recent cooperation and cautioned that parallel reporting mechanisms could undermine the agency’s unity and technical impartiality.

Earlier, Iran’s Foreign Ministry announced that UN Security Council Resolution 2231, the measure underpinning restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear program since 2015, had expired, and called for Iran’s nuclear file to be removed from the Council’s agenda and treated under standard Non-Proliferation Treaty procedures.

Western countries and Israel accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons, a claim Tehran denies, insisting its activities are strictly peaceful. The 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers limited Tehran’s program in exchange for sanctions relief, but the United States withdrew in 2018 and reinstated sanctions, after which Iran scaled back several commitments, including caps on uranium enrichment, leading the European trio to move toward restoring UN measures.

Read more: Iran's Nuclear Gambit: Cooperation halted, global alarms sound