VIENNA: The UN nuclear watchdog’s 35-nation board ​of governors has passed a resolution reporting Iran to the UN Security Council for the first time in 20 years for breaching its non-proliferation obligations, diplomats said on Wednesday.

The resolution follows a previous one passed on June 12 last year — the day before Israel started bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, soon followed by the United States — that found Iran in “non-compliance” with those obligations. Reporting it to the council for that breach required another resolution.

While the Security Council is unlikely to take concrete action against Iran since its allies Russia and China are permanent, veto-wielding members, the move is an escalation in a diplomatic standoff between Iran and Western ‌powers.

Iran warned on ‌Monday it would retaliate if the resolution passed.

Iran slams UN referral as ‘politically motivated’

Iran’s ambassador to the UN in Vienna, Reza Najafi, rejected the resolution as “legally flawed” and “politically motivated,” arguing that it would do nothing to ease the current crisis.

“The resolution adopted today is legally flawed and is a politically motivated resolution,” Njafi told AFP. “It will not have any added value to the current crisis.” 

He said Iran would determine its response, while arguing that the move undermined the prospects for diplomacy.

“Any kind of negotiation or diplomacy needs mutual respect,” Najafi added. “And such kind of political move and instrumentalising the technical body like the IAEA is against diplomacy. This is not in favour of diplomacy.”

Najafi also said Iran should not bear sole responsibility while the security consequences of aggression against it had been overlooked. “The burden cannot be placed on Iran while security consequences of aggression are ignored.”

Cooperation with the IAEA, he said, would depend on conditions and safety guarantees.

“Iran will cooperate only to the extent that circumstances and safety permits,” he said. “Security of the facilities must be guaranteed before any access, which means (the) end of all hostilities in the region as agreed in the MoU.”

Iran says US is ‘delusional’

An ​initial ‌reaction ⁠by Iran’s ​mission ⁠to the International Atomic Energy Agency, however, did not mention retaliation.

“Once again, a political resolution on Iran is nonconsensually adopted by the IAEA BoG (Board of Governors),” it said on X, referring to the fact the resolution was voted on rather than adopted without any country objecting.

“The current situation is created solely because of the criminal acts of aggression by the US and Israeli regime. The delusional objective of the US to force the great Iranian nation into ‘surrender’ and to plunder its oil will never happen,” it added.

The resolution text, proposed by the US, Britain, France and ⁠Germany, passed with 23 votes in favor, three against and eight abstentions, said ‌diplomats at the closed-door meeting, adding that those that opposed ‌it were Russia, China and Niger.

“(The board) requests the (IAEA) Director General ​to report this resolution and the previously adopted ‌resolutions ... to all Members of the Agency and to the Security Council and the General Assembly of the ‌United Nations, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the IAEA Statute,” the text read.

While the finding of non-compliance predates the war between the United States and Iran and concerns Tehran’s failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites that the agency spent years investigating, there is now another standoff over IAEA access to the sites bombed by ‌Israel and the US.

Lack of access ‘serious proliferation concern’

Iran has not let IAEA inspectors return to its bombed sites, including the three uranium-enrichment plants at ⁠the heart of its nuclear ⁠program that were destroyed or badly damaged in the military strikes.

Tehran has also not accounted for its stock of enriched uranium, some of which was enriched to up to 60 percent purity, a short step from the roughly 90 percent of weapons grade.

“The Agency’s lack of information about these facilities and associated nuclear material and our inability to conduct verification activities at these facilities is a matter of serious proliferation concern,” IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told his agency’s board on Monday.

“The situation needs to be rectified with the utmost urgency,” he added.

The IAEA estimates Iran had 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent before the US-Israeli attacks. That is enough, if enriched further, for 10 nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. How much has survived is unclear, although the IAEA has said it believes more than 200 kg remains at one ​site.

Wednesday’s resolution specifically mentioned two previous ones: the June ​12, 2025 text finding Iran in non-compliance and the most recent one, from June of this year, telling Iran to declare its remaining enriched uranium stocks and let inspectors verify them.