“We are aware of the media reports today related to Fordow. Agency inspectors are on the ground in Iran and they will report any relevant activities to IAEA headquarters in Vienna,” the spokesman said in a statement on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that the country will start injecting uranium gas into centrifuges at the Fordow enrichment facility on Wednesday, in the fourth step Tehran is taking away from the multinational nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Later in the day, Iran’s Ambassador to the IAEA Kazem Gharib-Abadi said the country has informed the UN nuclear agency about its decision to inject UF-6 gas into centrifuges at the Fordow nuclear facility.
Gharib-Abadi added that in a letter to the IAEA that Iran requested the presence of the agency’s inspectors at the facility on Wednesday to supervise the process.
The move comes in response to Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the deal in 2018 and the failure of the European signatories to the nuclear accord— France, Britain and Germany – to take practical strides to compensate for the US’s absence.
Tehran has so far rowed back on its nuclear commitments three times in compliance with Articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA, stressing that its retaliatory measures will be reversible as soon as Europe finds practical ways to shield the mutual trade from the US sanctions.
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