“Iran cannot and will not have a nuclear weapon,” she told reporters.
Iran has repeatedly insisted that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes. The IAEA has said that while it had no evidence that Iran was building a weapon, the country was stockpiling around 400kg of highly enriched uranium, which could enable the Government to build 10 bombs.
It is unclear how badly the strikes damaged Iran’s nuclear programme. US President Donald Trump insisted it was “obliterated”, while Rafael Grossi, the IAEA director-general, said that Iran could begin enriching uranium again in a “matter of months”.
One of the IAEA’s main purposes is to monitor the nuclear activity of countries that have signed on to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and to try to prevent the building of nuclear weapons.
Iran is a party to the treaty. Israel, which is widely believed to have nuclear weapons but has never confirmed it, is not.
The IAEA said that it was aware of the reports that Iran was suspending its co-operation and that it was waiting for further official information.
Iran’s hawkish parliament passed the law last week. But it had not been clear whether the President, Masoud Pezeshkian, considered a political moderate, would put the law into effect or try to block it.
There has been widespread outrage in the Iranian Government since the IAEA issued a declaration last month that Iran was not complying with its nuclear non-proliferation obligations.
The agency released its findings the day before Israel launched its June 13 attack. Iranian officials argue the censure gave Israel political cover for its strikes.
Iranian officials also accused Grossi of saying only after Israel began its strikes that there was no evidence of a systematic effort to build nuclear weapons. In fact, that assessment was in the report Grossi delivered to the agency’s board in May, before the attack.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called on Germany, France, and Britain, to reimpose sanctions on Iran in response to the new law under a provision in the 2015 deal that limited the country’s uranium enrichment.
The deal was agreed to by the Obama Administration, the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council, the European Union and Germany. Trump pulled the US out during his first term, but European countries have continued to adhere to it.
Under a so-called snap back provision in the agreement, sanctions can be reimposed if Iran is found to have violated the nuclear provisions.
“There’s justification for snap back. But I don’t think we’re there yet,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House in London.
“Iran is trying to calibrate the escalation. It doesn’t have too many cards to play, but this is the first opening salvo.”
German Foreign Ministry spokesperson Martin Giese called the new law a “disastrous signal”.
“Iran’s co-operation with the IAEA is essential for a diplomatic solution,” he told reporters today, urging Tehran to reverse course.
Iranian lawmakers have stipulated two conditions for resuming co-operation, according to Iranian state media: that the safety of its nuclear programme and scientists is secured, and an acknowledgment of what it says is its right under international law to enrich uranium.
Whether those conditions have been met would be decided by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, which shapes the country’s security and foreign policy.
During the war, Iranian lawmakers also threatened to pass a law that would withdraw Iran from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. The agreement requires transparency over its nuclear programme and a commitment not to build a nuclear bomb.
By focusing on its relationship with the nuclear watchdog, Iranian officials appear to have put that threat aside.
Trump has said that negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme could resume as soon as this week, but Iran’s foreign minister said they could start only if the US guaranteed that it would not attack the country during talks.
“In order for us to decide to re-engage, we will have to first ensure that America will not revert back to targeting us in a military attack during the negotiations,” Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, told CBS News.
Under its agreement with Iran, the IAEA is supposed to inspect the nuclear facilities that Iran has publicly declared, including those at Natanz and Fordow, which the US bombed. Israeli officials say there may be secret nuclear sites that Iran has not disclosed.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Erika Solomon and Sanam Mahoozi
Photograph by: Arash Khamooshi
©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
