TEHRAN -- Iran’s top nuclear
official says the country has begun injecting uranium gas into advanced centrifuges and disconnected some UN nuclear agency cameras monitoring its sites outside Safeguards Agreement.
“We have terminated the operations of a number of the agency’s cameras functioning outside the Safeguards, and tomorrow we will terminate the operations of the rest, which are 17 to 18 in total,” Muhammad Eslami told national broadcaster Thursday night.
The measures came after the UN nuclear agency’s Board of Governors adopted a “political” resolution Wednesday, accusing Iran of not cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Iran’s response was swift and decisive, declaring that it had “taken practical quid pro quo steps which include installation of advanced centrifuges and deactivation of cameras operating outside the Safeguards Agreement”.
“We installed new centrifuges and began injecting gas. For gas injection into the advanced machines, the agency’s inspectors came and visited them,” said Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).
He said Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities will continue in a technical manner and under the IAEA regulations as opportunities for nuclear research and industrial development,
“We currently have 12 mines on our agenda and a lot more are under study. In the next five years, we will be much different in terms of mineral processing than before.”
Iran’s top nuclear official pointed to the construction of an ion therapy hospital in the country, saying 17 new radiopharmaceuticals are also being designed for production.
Eslami also touched on the cooperation of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran with universities. Referring to the services of the AEOI to the country’s aviation industry, he said the laser has a wide range of applications but the West had turned it and the nuclear energy into a security issue, trying to make them off limits to Iran.
In the steel industry, he said, all the country’s precision instruments are nuclear, which should have been laid off during the time of U.S. sanctions.
“The precision instrumentation systems of 150 to 160 large plants in the country, including refineries, cement and steel, had been switched off because they [the West] were not providing services but now the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran provides them to the country’s industries,” Eslami said.
The AEOI, he said, is currently providing services to the Iranian ministry of petroleum to survey and discover new oil wells.
The trigger for the latest measures was a report issued by the IAEA after IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi made a controversial visit to Occupied Palestine and met the regime’s leaders late last month. The agency has been on the receiving end of documents supplied by Israel about Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran has rejected as fake and fabricated by MKO terrorists.
Eslami said the UN nuclear agency has been taken captive by the Zionist regime.
“It is regrettable that an international institution has been exploited

by an illegitimate regime and its reputation has been questioned,” Eslami said.
He said Iran moved beyond its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to show its goodwill through allowing cameras outside Safeguards Agreement, but the move was not appreciated by the UN agency.
“Why did we accept them and restrict ourselves? Only to ward off accusations, but our good faith and optimism have not been taken into consideration,” he said.
Eslami emphasized that Iran cannot put its trust in the U.S. and Europeans forever, but it will fulfill its JCPOA obligations once the United States returns to the deal which it unilaterally abandoned in May 2018.
On Wednesday, Iran switched off two of the IAEA surveillance cameras that it had voluntarily allowed in a “goodwill gesture”.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to the IAEA and representative in the Vienna talks, on Friday denounced the “stupid” anti-Tehran resolution, saying the West has no understanding of the ongoing situation.
“Have you got the latest news from Iran? Do you understand now why Russia voted against the stupid Western resolution of the IAEA BoG on Iran yesterday? Regrettably our Western counterparts demonstrate total lack of understanding of where we are,” Ulyanov tweeted.
The resolution was approved Wednesday with 30 votes in favor, two against and three abstentions.
“The #IAEA BoG adopted resolution on #Iran sponsored by Germany, France, the U.K. and the US. 30 Governors voted in favour, 2 (Russia and China) against and 3 (India, Libya, Pakistan) abstained. Thus countries which represent more than 1/2 of mankind didn’t support the resolution,” Ulyanov tweeted on Wednesday.
Iran strongly denounced the resolution, saying its sponsors are “responsible for the consequences”.
“US-E3 put their shortsighted agenda ahead of IAEA’s credibility by pushing a miscalculated & ill-advised Res. against a country w/ the world’s most transparent peaceful nuclear program,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh tweeted early Thursday.
“The initiators are responsible for the consequences. Iran’s response is firm & proportionate,” he added.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said, “The adoption of this resolution, which is based on the hasty and unbalanced report of the Director General of the IAEA and on false and fabricated information of the Zionist regime, will only weaken the process of cooperation and interaction of the Islamic Republic of Iran with the IAEA.”
The IAEA, the ministry said, appeared to have resurrected issues which had been settled between the two sides seven years ago, despite the Islamic Republic having “always cooperated constructively” with the agency in recent years.
Iran, it said, had showed its good faith in cooperation with the IAEA by providing accurate technical information as confirmed by their joint statement issued in March when Grossi visited Tehran.
“Likewise, the Agency was expected to take an independent, impartial and professional approach, taking constructive and realistic steps to normalize safeguards issues that according to the Agency own admission did not bear proliferation concerns,” the statement said.
“It seems some have forgotten that all past issues were closed once and for all on December 15, 2015 by the Board of Governors,” it added.
The Foreign Ministry also denounced the resolution as a “political, wrongful and unconstructive act” against a country which “currently has one of the most transparent peaceful nuclear programs among the IAEA members”.