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IAEA Board Passes Iran Resolution as West Pushes Tehran Towards Talks
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi arrives on the opening day of the agency’s quarterly Board of Governors meeting at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Lisa Leutner
The UN atomic watchdog’s 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution on Thursday again ordering Iran to urgently improve cooperation with the agency and requesting a “comprehensive” report aimed at pressuring Iran into fresh nuclear talks.
Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, which proposed the resolution, dismissed as insufficient and insincere a last-minute Iranian move to cap its stock of uranium that is close to weapons-grade. Diplomats said Iran‘s move was conditional on scrapping the resolution.
Iran tends to bristle at such resolutions and has said it would respond in kind to this one. After previous criticism at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board, it has stepped up its nuclear activities and reduced IAEA oversight.
China, Russia, and Burkina Faso voted against the text, diplomats in the meeting said. Nineteen countries voted in favor and 12 abstained.
The IAEA and Iran have long been locked in standoffs on a range of issues including Tehran‘s failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites, its barring last year of most of the agency’s top uranium-enrichment experts on the Iran inspection team, and its refusal to expand IAEA monitoring.
The resolution seen by Reuters repeated wording from a November 2022 resolution that it was “essential and urgent” for Iran to explain the uranium traces and let the IAEA take samples as necessary. The resolution in June of this year did the same.
The new text asked the IAEA to issue “a comprehensive and updated assessment on the possible presence or use of undeclared nuclear material in connection with past and present outstanding issues regarding Iran‘s nuclear program, including a full account of Iran‘s cooperation with the IAEA on these issues.”
Western powers hope that report, due by spring 2025, will pressure Iran into negotiations on fresh restrictions on its nuclear activities, albeit less far-reaching ones than in a 2015 deal with major powers that unraveled after then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from it in 2018.
With Trump due to return to office in January and Iran having taken its uranium enrichment far beyond the deal’s limits, it is far from clear whether Trump would back negotiations aimed at setting new limits before the 2015 deal’s ones are lifted on “termination day” in October of next year.
If no new limits are agreed before then, the report could be used to strengthen the case for so-called “snapback”, a process under the 2015 deal where the issue is sent to the UN Security Council and sanctions lifted under the deal can be re-imposed.
Last week IAEA chief Rafael Grossi visited Tehran, hoping to convince new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who is seen as relatively moderate, to improve Iran‘s cooperation with the agency.
IRANIAN REACTION
Grossi formally reported to member states on Tuesday that “the possibility of Iran not further expanding its stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60 percent U-235 was discussed” in his meetings with Iranian officials, and that the IAEA had verified Iran had “begun implementation of preparatory measures.”
Iran already has enough material enriched to that level, close to the roughly 90 percent purity that is weapons grade, for four nuclear weapons if enriched further, according to an IAEA yardstick. It has enough material enriched to lower levels for more bombs, but Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.
Grossi said on Wednesday he had asked Iran to cap that stock of 60 percent material and Iran had accepted his request.
He told a news conference that day that it was “a concrete step in the right direction,” suggesting that he felt a resolution could undermine that progress.
With the resolution passed, Iran is likely to respond.
Moments after the vote, Iranian state media cited a joint statement by the foreign ministry and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran saying Iran‘s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami has issued orders for measures like activating various new and advanced centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium.
“If there is a resolution, it [Iran] will either increase its activities or reduce the agency’s access,” a senior diplomat said before the vote.
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Putin Has Invitation to Visit Iran, but Dates Have Yet to Be Set, Kremlin Says
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attend a ceremony to sign an agreement of comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 17, 2025. Photo: Sputnik/Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Pool via REUTERS
Russian President Vladimir Putin has an invitation to visit Iran, but the dates have not yet been agreed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.
Iran‘s government spokesman Fatemeh Mohajerani was quoted by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on Tuesday as saying that Putin‘s visit to Iran “is currently being worked out.”
Moscow and Tehran signed a 20-year strategic partnership agreement in January, the two countries have supplied each other with weapons, and Russia has defended what it says is Tehran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy.
“Indeed, President Putin has an invitation to pay an official or working visit to Iran. The dates have not yet been agreed. As soon as they are agreed, we will inform you,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about a possible visit.
“We highly value our partnership with this country and we highly value the depth of our relationship in a wide variety of areas.”
The last time Putin visited Iran was in 2022, months after he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.
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Israel Intercepts Missile From Yemen, Houthis Claim Responsibility
People take cover, while sirens sound in Jerusalem, May 13, 2025. Israel’s military reported that a missile was launched from Yemen towards Israel and was intercepted. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen towards its territory.
The launch coincides with US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Gulf. Trump has announced that he reached a ceasefire with Yemen‘s Houthis, an internationally designated terrorist group, that will halt attacks on US vessels.
The Iran-aligned group fired a missile towards Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, according to the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree.
Trump announced early in May that the US would stop bombing the Houthis in Yemen as the group had agreed to stop attacking US ships.
The Houthis said they will continue to fire missiles and drones towards Israel.
The Houthis have attacked numerous vessels in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade, in a campaign that they say is aimed at showing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel has been fighting a war in Gaza since a deadly raid by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas into southern Israel in October 2023.
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Netanyahu Accuses France’s Macron of Siding With Hamas, Pushing Anti-Israel ‘Blood Libels’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron in Jerusalem, Oct. 24, 2023. Photo: Christophe Ena/Pool via REUTERS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday accused French President Emmanuel Macron of standing with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and repeating “blood libels” against the Jewish state after Macron castigated Israel’s policy in Gaza.
“Macron has once again chosen to stand with a murderous Islamist terrorist organization and echo its despicable propaganda, accusing Israel of blood libels,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “Israel will not stop and will not surrender.”
The statement added that Israel is fighting “for its very existence following the horrific massacre committed by Hamas against innocent people on Oct. 7, including the murder and kidnapping of dozens of French nationals.”
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the ongoing war on Oct. 7, 2023, when they invaded southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, wounded thousands more, and kidnapped 251 hostages while perpetrating widespread sexual violence and other atrocities. Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in Gaza, the neighboring Palestinian enclave ruled by the terrorist group for nearly two decades.
Speaking to French television on Tuesday, Macron said the Israeli government’s blockade of aid into Gaza is “unacceptable” and “shameful.”
“What the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is doing is unacceptable … there is no water, no medicine, the wounded cannot get out, the doctors cannot get in. What he is doing is shameful,” Macron told TF1 television. “We need the United States. President Trump has the levers. I have had tough words with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I got angry, but they [Israel] don’t depend on us, they depend on American weapons.”
Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza aid since early March, when it resumed military operations against Hamas following a two-month ceasefire. Experts and Israeli officials have said that Hamas steals much of the aid to fuel its terrorist operations and sells some of the remainder to Gaza’s civilian population at an increased price. Jerusalem has also said that aid distribution cannot be left to international organizations, which it accuses of allowing Hamas to seize supplies intended for the civilian population.
Netanyahu’s office slammed Macron for lambasting Israel rather than siding with the Middle East’s lone democracy.
“Instead of supporting the Western democratic camp fighting the Islamist terrorist organizations and calling for the release of the hostages, Macron is once again demanding that Israel surrender and reward terrorism,” the statement said.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also lambasted Macron for his comments.
“We remember well what happened to the Jews in France when they could not defend themselves,” he said in a post on X/Twitter, apparently referring to the mass killing of Jews during the Nazi occupation of France in World War II. “President Macron will not preach morality to us. It is expected of those who define themselves as friends of Israel to stand by Israel in its war against the murderous terrorist organization Hamas and the Iranian axis of evil that threaten to destroy the State of Israel — instead of trying to deny it the right to self-defense.”
He added, “The IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] operates at an unsurpassed level of morality in difficult and complex circumstances — certainly more than anything France has done in its past wars.”
The spat between Paris and Jerusalem came after Macron said last month that France is making plans to recognize a Palestinian state and could do so as early as June. Israeli and French Jewish leaders sharply criticized Macron’s announcement, decrying such a decision as a “prize for terrorism and a boost for Hamas.”
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