IAEA Refers Iran to the UN Security Council

Vienna – Agencies: The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) referred Iran to the United Nations Security Council for the first time in 20 years, citing its failure to comply with its obligations regarding safeguards and nuclear non-proliferation. Twenty-three of the 35 member states on the Board of Governors voted in favor of the resolution at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, while Russia, China, and Niger voted against it, and eight countries abstained. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany submitted the draft resolution, a move that had been under discussion since June 2025. Immediately, Russia, China, and Iran issued a joint statement rejecting the Western draft. In the statement, read by Russia on behalf of the three countries, it was asserted that the agenda item “has no connection to the current situation,” emphasizing that all provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015) had ceased to be in force on October 18, 2025. Consequently, attempts by the three European countries to activate the “snapback” mechanism were described as “invalid attempts” lacking any legal legitimacy. The statement stressed that the request for the IAEA Director General to submit a report on the implementation of Iran’s nuclear commitments “has no legal basis whatsoever and involves the politicization of an issue that should have remained inherently technical.” It simultaneously reaffirmed Iran’s firm commitment to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and its inherent right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The statement noted that “the repeated attacks on IAEA-safeguarded Iranian nuclear facilities, which we strongly condemn, constitute an unprecedented case in the agency’s history and deal a blow to the very foundations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty itself.”