Move makes it harder to verify degree of damage inflicted on Iran's three key nuclear sites by joint US and Israeli bombing
Iran's parliament has unanimously agreed to suspend all cooperation with the UN nuclear inspectorate the IAEA, making it harder for an independent expert assessment to be made about the degree of damage inflicted on Iran's three key nuclear sites by the joint US and Israeli bombing. It also makes it harder for the location of any highly enriched uranium to be known.
The vote is a sign that Iran wants to harden its negotiating position on cooperation with the west in the wake of the 12 days of attacks mounted by Israel, and the US, but supported by European governments only with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
The decision to suspend cooperation with the IAEA still requires the approval of the Guardian Council, a body empowered to vet legislation.
The defiance is just one part of an internal debate inside Iran about the lessons to be learned from the past fortnight. Some analysts fear that the government's relief at its survival, and absence of any grassroots revolt, will turn into a triumphalism that blinds its leaders to the country's strategic weakness, and the need to make concessions.
Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry, accepted that Iran's nuclear facilities had been severely damaged, the first Iranian politician to make such an admission.
No date has yet been set for a resumption of diplomatic talks between the US special envoy Steve Witkoff and the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, but Witkoff said contacts were being made and Donald Trump claimed next week would see a meeting. The sixth round of their talks, due to have taken place on 15 June, were called off by Iran two days before when it came under what it regarded as a US-sponsored attack by Israel.
A provisional internal US government assessment says the Iranian nuclear program had been set back only by a few months, but Trump insisted Iran's program had been obliterated.
The parliament's move to suspend cooperation with the IAEA was passed with 222 votes and no opposing votes. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the parliament, said the IAEA "had not fulfilled its duties and become a political tool". Resumption of cooperation would be dependent on a report from both the Iranian Atomic Energy Authority and the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee. Guarantees would be needed about the safety of Iranian nuclear facilities.
The National security committee recommended suspension of cooperation on Tuesday after it described the IAEA's recent report criticising Iran's own lack of cooperation with the agency as false and the pretext for an attack on Iran. MPs shouted "Down with the US and down with Israel" after passing the motion.
Qalibaf said Iran's civil nuclear program would continue "at a rapid pace", contradicting a claim by Trump that Iran "would not want to go near" another nuclear program, or domestic enrichment of uranium.
The motion said activities such as "installing surveillance cameras, inspections, and reporting to the agency will be halted unless the future security of Iran’s nuclear facilities is guaranteed."
The IAEA had criticised Iran in its latest report for lack of cooperation with the inspectorate leading to a censure motion last month being passed by a majority of member states on the IAEA board. The censure motion sets in train a chain of events likely to lead to the restoration of UN sanctions this October. The parliament also heard calls for Rafael Grossi the director general of the IAEA to be sued for providing false reports and for his staff spying on nuclear facilities on behalf of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.
Grossi said the international community cannot accept Iran ending cooperation over its nuclear facilities. He admitted the IAEA cannot know the location of Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
The Kremlin also attacked the lost credibility of the IAEA, also adding the Iranian decision was a cause for concern. Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said the chances of reviving talks on a new nuclear deal had receded.
The country's vice president Mohammad Reza Aref said: "We will no longer allow bargaining over enrichment within our country's territory because we have entered a new space and the enemy has also realised that it is not facing the same Iran as before."
Debate is already swirling whether the government should take the next step and leave the nuclear non proliferation treaty, a move that would signal Iran is intending to be free of the NPT constraints and like Israel will build a nuclear deterrent.
Akbar A'Alami a former MP from Tabriz said: "If our membership in the NPT cannot defend us against military attack or economic sanctions, and in practice becomes a tool of inspection and constant threat, what is the justification for remaining in it?"
Iran has always insisted a nuclear bomb was un-Islamic. It may be that Iran will try to retain in a state of ambiguity about its nuclear intentions in a bid to ward off further attacks from Israel.
The overall narrative in government circles is that Iran defiantly held out against the attacks of the US and Israel, prompting a new unity across Iranian society that the country's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has long wanted to nurture. But critics say this new consensus is born of anger with Israel, and not faith in government. A crackdown on dissidents is under way often under the guise of tracking down a network of Mossad agents.
Centrist politicians are urging caution about claims of a historic victory. The former Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, wrote: “We must be prepared - not for warmongering - but for a lasting and powerful peace, which comes at a cost and is achieved through rationality, deterrence, and the pursuit of strategic depth in the hearts and minds of Iranians, not through baseless and reckless wishful thinking.”
Experts are already discussing how Iran's air defences were so exposed and Russia's role in failing to supply Sukhoi -35 jets as contracted in 2023.
Others claim refugees especially those from Afghanistan and the Kurdistan region of Iraq have led to a weakening of the country's security which must be reviewed in the postwar reconstruction period.