Nuclear talks: UN Watchdog Agency Says Iran Removing 27 Surveillance Cameras

The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday that Iran is removing 27 surveillance cameras from nuclear sites in the country, raising the risk of its inspectors being unable to track Tehran’s advances as it enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, made the comments at a hastily called news conference in Vienna, standing next to an example of the cameras installed across Iran.

Grossi said the move poses a “serious challenge” to its efforts, warning that in three to four weeks, it would be unable to maintain a “continuity of knowledge” about Iran’s program.

“This would be a fatal blow” to negotiations over Iran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers, Grossi said.

“When we lose this, then it’s anybody’s guess,” he added.

Iran did not immediately acknowledge it was removing the cameras, though it threatened Wednesday to take more steps amid a years-long crisis that threatens to widen into further attacks across the Mideast.

Grossi said that would leave “40-something” cameras still in Iran. The sites that would see cameras removed include its underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, as well as its uranium conversion facility in Isfahan, Grossi said.

On Wednesday, Iran said it shut off two devices the IAEA uses to monitor enrichment at Natanz. Grossi acknowledged that, saying that among the devices being removed was the Online Enrichment Monitor and flowmeter. Those watch the enrichment of uranium gas through piping at enrichment facilities.

Iran’s decision comes as the IAEA’s board censured Tehran over what the agency calls the Islamic Republic’s failure to provide “credible information” over man-made nuclear material found at three undeclared sites in the country.

The IAEA earlier Thursday said Grossi told members that Iran informed the agency that it planned to install two new cascades of the IR-6 at Natanz. A cascade is a series of centrifuges hooked together to rapidly spin uranium gas to enrich it.

An IR-6 centrifuge spins uranium 10 times as fast as the first-generation centrifuges that Iran was once limited to under its nuclear deal with world powers. As of February, Iran already had been spinning a cascade of IR-6s at its underground facility at Fordo, according to the IAEA.

Iran earlier said it planned to install one cascade of IR-6s at Natanz. The IAEA said it “verified” the ongoing installation of that cascade Monday, while the newly promised two new cascades had yet to begin.