Mike Pompeo
Mike PompeoReuters

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday urged the international community to call on Iran to fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Pompeo’s statement followed IAEA’s IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi’s report from earlier this week in which he said that the Islamic Republic is not cooperating with IAEA inspectors overseeing its nuclear program.

“On March 3 in Vienna, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi issued two new reports that heighten already serious concerns that the Islamic Republic of Iran is hiding its nuclear material and nuclear activities,” said Pompeo.

“Iran is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran’s safeguards agreements, under that Treaty, require it to declare nuclear material to the IAEA and provide IAEA inspectors with access for verification. Iran’s intentional failure to declare such nuclear material would be a clear violation of its safeguards agreement required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The regime must immediately cooperate with the IAEA and fully comply with its IAEA safeguards obligations. Otherwise, the NPT isn’t worth the paper it is written on,” he continued.

“The IAEA’s latest reports are all the more troubling because we know that Iran continues to lie about its past nuclear weapons program and concealed a vast archive of records from those efforts when it concluded the nuclear deal – not to mention its lies about downing a civilian airliner, and its suppression of the extent of its coronavirus outbreak. Given Iran’s prior covert nuclear weapons program and ignominious record of duplicity, any undeclared nuclear material or activities in Iran today would be an extremely serious matter,” said Pompeo.

“The United States remains committed to denying Iran any pathway to a nuclear weapon. In light of Iran’s past nuclear weapons program, it is imperative that Iran verifiably demonstrate that it has permanently abandoned all such work. Any new deal addressing nuclear concerns in Iran must be built on robust and effective verification.”

“The international community must speak clearly and with one voice: full and transparent cooperation with the IAEA and compliance with the NPT is the only path forward for Iran,” concluded the Secretary of State.

Grossi’s report demanded "clarifications" over an undeclared site in Tehran where uranium particles were found late last year.

The IAEA has for months been pressing Tehran for information about the kind of activities being carried out at an undeclared site where the uranium particles were found.

While the IAEA has not identified the site in question, it is believed to be the Turquzabad facility which was identified by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his address before the UN General Assembly in 2018 as a "secret atomic warehouse."

Reports last April indicated that the IAEA had inspected the secret atomic warehouse. Subsequent reports said the facility was found to contain traces of uranium.

A second report from the agency detailed Iran's current breaches of several parts of a landmark 2015 international deal on scaling back its nuclear program.

The report showed Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium now stands at more than five times the limit fixed under the accord.

Iran has gradually scaled back its compliance with the 2015 deal in response to US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement in May of 2018.