Iran Nuclear Impasse Deepens After US Wins UN Watchdog Vote

(MENAFN- Live Mint) The US pushed through a resolution of censure against Iran that refers its nuclear file to the United Nations Security Council, deepening the diplomatic divide separating Washington from Beijing, Moscow and Tehran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency resolution to send Tehran's case to the Security Council passed with 23 of the 35 board of governors favoring the motion, according to an official tally of the vote. China and Russia led the remaining group of board members that either rejected or abstained from voting on the measure.

Before the vote was taken, Beijing and Moscow joined Iran to reject the legality of the vote. The IAEA“lacks a legal basis” to even report on Iran's activities” and doing so“risks politicizing” a technical matter, they wrote.

The censure could also open the possibility of new military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. In a separate diplomatic note circulated overnight, Iran cautioned western countries against turning the IAEA into a tool of war. Tehran's envoy highlighted the precedent set in June 2025, when Israel began attacks on Iran a day after the organization found the Islamic Republic in non-compliance of its nuclear obligations.

“The aggressions of the Israeli regime and America against Iran just a few hours after its adoption, are solid proofs of the sponsors' hidden agenda,” Iran's IAEA envoy wrote in the 11-page document, which urged diplomats to“condemn the unlawful attacks.”

Wednesday's diplomatic maneuver demands that Iran“urgently remedy its non-compliance” and allow checks to ensure“the non-diversion of nuclear material.”

“The EU is gravely concerned by Iran's complete suspension of its cooperation with the IAEA,” the bloc said in a statement, after supporting the US motion.“Iran must urgently address this to allay concerns regarding the possible diversion of declared nuclear material from peaceful uses.”

President Donald Trump said last week that the US is contemplating fresh strikes against deeply buried facilities suspected of housing nuclear activities. He's long said the motive behind going to war with Iran at the end of February was to prevent the country from building a nuclear weapon.

“We may hit Pickaxe very soon,” Trump told reporters on Sept. 4, referring to a heavily fortified mountain site just south of Iran's main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz.“We know everybody that's moving at Pickaxe,” Trump said.“If anything goes bad we hit them.”

In addition to the resolution which triggered the 12-day war in June 2025, the current conflict started a day after the IAEA reported the observation of renewed activity near bombed sites.

The IAEA has grown increasingly frustrated over Iran's obstruction of its inspectors' work.

“There's no engagement, there is no information, and we are being told that they are not going to cooperate until there is some agreement in the wider political negotiation,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said Monday.

In its note circulated Tuesday, Iran said Grossi's proliferation concerns are“irrelevant” amid the“damaged international and regional peace and security” created by the war.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

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