Thank you, Chair.

The United States once again expresses its appreciation for the professional and impartial efforts of the Director General and the Secretariat to engage Iran on the serious, outstanding issues related to the implementation of Iran’s NPT-required safeguards agreement.

We appreciate the Director General’s detailed reporting on these critical issues, which is essential to the international community’s understanding of the nature of Iran’s nuclear program and the serious shortcomings in Iran’s cooperation with the Agency to date.

I would like to focus my time on why Iran’s nuclear program poses such a serious challenge to international security and our vision for responding to that challenge.

There are at least three attributes of Iran’s current approach that are highly problematic.

First, Iran has thus far failed to provide the legally required cooperation necessary to resolve long outstanding safeguards issues involving evidence of nuclear material at undeclared locations.  Iran’s lack of cooperation continues despite the resolutions adopted by the Board in recent years, including the Board’s decision almost two years ago that it is essential and urgent that Iran act to fulfill its legal obligations and provide the specified cooperation without delay.  Regrettably, due to Iran’s continued obfuscations and denials, the IAEA does not currently have the confidence needed to assess that Iran’s declarations are correct and complete.

Second, there is a deeply troubling and steady drumbeat of recent statements from senior Iranian officials threatening that Iran may reconsider its stated nuclear doctrine and asserting that Iran has all the technical capabilities needed to quickly to build nuclear weapons should it decide to do so.

Finally, a third concerning attribute of Iran’s nuclear program is that Iran has repeatedly responded to the resolutions adopted by this Board in recent years with escalation instead of cooperation, including by producing 60 percent enriched uranium at its heavily fortified, underground facility at Fordow.  As the Director General has stated, Iran is the only country that does not have a nuclear weapon that is enriching to this level.

Tehran’s recent statements should not be dismissed as mere bluster.  Iran, a country with a past nuclear weapons program and whose enrichment program started in secret, is amassing a growing stockpile of highly enriched uranium, and now boasts of being on the precipice of nuclear weapons capability despite its NPT obligations.

Moreover, the Director General has also reported that the IAEA has lost its previous visibility into Iran’s production of centrifuge components, and that Iran refuses to provide design information for planned new nuclear facilities as legally required under modified Code 3.1 of its safeguards agreement.  The IAEA’s lack of knowledge about the number and whereabouts of Iran’s centrifuge components and Iran’s unwillingness to meet its obligation to report planned nuclear facilities to the IAEA are all the more worrisome when one recalls that Iran built its enrichment facilities at Fordow and Natanz in secret.

The Director General also now reports new questions concerning a nuclear material discrepancy related to Iran’s work involving uranium metal in the 1995-2000 timeframe that cannot be explained by measurement error.

Now I would like to turn to the current resolution tabled for adoption by the Governments of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.  Given Iran’s lack of cooperation with the IAEA and our commitment to collective action in support of the Agency and the NPT, the United States supports this resolution.  But, make no mistake, it is important that resolutions be tied to a broader strategy.

This resolution should be a first step in a strategy aimed at achieving a sustainable, effective solution to Iran’s nuclear program that includes full cooperation with the IAEA, especially as we look ahead to October 2025, when the UN Security Council could close consideration of Iran’s nuclear issue under Security Council Resolution 2231.  This will be a natural inflection point for the international community’s quest to make certain that Iran’s program remains exclusively peaceful.

As we approach this inflection point and absent Iran’s full cooperation with the IAEA, the United States believes the Board of Governors and the broader international community would benefit from a comprehensive report describing all remaining safeguards concerns in Iran stemming from the undeclared locations, as well as the technical concerns the IAEA sees that give rise to the Director General’s requests for the measures he has been pursuing via implementation of the March 2023 Joint Statement.

The content of any report remains in Iran’s hands.  If Iran cooperates as the IAEA requests, we would look forward to that cooperation being reflected in the Director General’s reporting toward resolving these long outstanding matters.  In this regard, we once again urge Iran to fully implement the pledges it made in the March 2023 IAEA-Iran Joint Statement.

Finally, we note the Director General’s report that Iran allowed certain cameras to be serviced and downblended a small quantity of the additional 60 percent enriched uranium Iran produced since March.  However, if Iran wishes to demonstrate its cooperation and good faith, it must go well beyond these measured steps, step back from its provocative nuclear activities, and finally deliver the full cooperation required by its safeguards obligations.  We underscore that the opportunity for Iran to choose a different path from the one it has taken remains open.

Chair,

With these comments we take note of the Director General’s report on this agenda item contained in GOV/2024/29 and request it be made public.

Thank you.