Islamic Republic held briefly an inspector working for the U.N. nuclear watchdog i and seized her travel documents, diplomats said Reuter News Agency.
The incident appears to be the first of its kind since Tehran’s landmark deal with major powers was struck in 2015, imposing restrictions on Iran‘s nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.
Hours after Reuters reported the incident, Teheran confirmed that it had prevented an inspector from accessing its Natanz site – the heart of its uranium enrichment programme – because of a concern that she might be carrying “suspicious material”, according to the Fars News Agency.
The episode comes at a time of heightened friction between Iran and the West, with Tehran breaching the deal’s restrictions step-by-step in response to Washington’s withdrawal from the deal and renewed sanctions.
The deal, which the IAEA is policing, allows for 130-150 inspectors from the agency designated for Iran. It also says Iran will grant the IAEA “regular access, including daily access as requested by the IAEA, to relevant buildings at Natanz”.
The incident with the inspector further complicates the task of the deal’s remaining signatories – France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China – who want to prevent deal total collapsing.
On Wednesday, however, Iran further raised pressure on those countries by announcing what would be a new breach of the deal – enriching uranium with the centrifuges it has at Fordow, a site that it dug in secret inside a mountain, apparently to protect it from potential aerial bombardment.
The deal banned enrichment at Fordow but allowed Iran to keep around 1,000 centrifuges there, turning the site into a “nuclear, physics, and technology centre” where no nuclear materials are present.
