UN Watchdog Says Iran Is Not Cooperating With Investigation Into Uranium Traces At Undeclared Sites. It’s Reporting It.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, reported Iran to the UN Security Council for the first time in decades over failure to cooperate with a long-running investigation about uranium traces found in undeclared sites, according to a new report.

The Associated Press noted that 23 countries in the watchdog's 35-member board voted in favor of the resolution. Eight additional countries opposed it and China, Russia and Niger opposed it. The remaining member didn't vote because it was in arrears, that is, late on payments.

The move, the outlet noted, had been under consideration for over a year and after the IAEA board determined Iran was in noncompliance with its nonproliferation obligations. Officials believe the traces could help prove that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until 2003.

Iran has rejected all allegations and claims its nuclear aspirations are peaceful. However, President Donald Trump has vowed to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, striking the country's known nuclear facilities last year at the end of the 12-day war with Israel.

A new analysis published by experts from the Center for Strategic and International Studies shows that a suspected Iranian nuclear facility buried deep inside a mountain is seeing a "clear surge in construction activity" this year.

The site in question is known as Pickaxe mountain and is located near the Natanz nuclear complex, which was bombed by the U.S. last year. It hosts two tunnel complexes experts believe can't be reached by the U.S.'s most powerful bunker buster bombs.

A report from July noted that Israeli intelligence believes Iran has moved thousands of nuclear centrifuges beneath the mountain during the current war.

The Wall Street Journal detailed back then that officials told U.S. counterpart their assessment shows the move took place in the past fall after the war.

Pickaxe mountain was not targeted last year and has not been hit in this year's war either, according to The Times Of Israel.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi recalled earlier this year that Iran said in 2021 that it intended to "have nuclear activity" in the mountain.

The CSIS report details a "clear three-phase activity signature across the five key points of interest and the roads connecting them, indicating a site that has shifted from active excavation toward probable internal construction and continued exterior reinforcement."

The document goes on to detail that there is also a "hardening of the portal accesses, paving of the internal road network, reinforcement around access areas, and the flattening and removal of excavation spoil."

CSIS analysts note that the assessment can't confirm or refute Israeli intelligence claims that Iran moved the centrifuges inside the facility. However, they believe that current evidence "suggest the underground facility is not yet capable of enrichment work, if that is the intended purpose."