Iran has threatened to halt cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, or the IAEA, after the UN Security Council voted against lifting sanctions on Tehran.
The warning from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, or the SNSC, came on Saturday.
The response came after the United Nations Security Council voted on Friday to reimpose frozen UN sanctions on Iran.
Some members of the UN council had accused Iran of not complying with the 2015 deal it signed to curb its nuclear programme.
What is E3's snapback sanctions
The vote was called by three European nations, Britain, France, and Germany, collectively known as the E3.
The three nations activated a special clause in the 2015 agreement, called the “snapback mechanism”.
Once activated, all the suspended UN sanctions would be reimposed on Iran. Russia and China, which are also the signatories to the deal, rejected the bid to trigger ‘snapback’ sanctions on Iran.
Tehran called the move illegitimate and stressed that it was the US which abandoned the nuclear deal in 2018.
Notably earlier this month, Iran had agreed to resume cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.
On September 9, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi and the IAEA Director General Rafeel Grossi signed an agreement in Egypt.
The agreement focused on restarting the IAEA’s inspections on Iran’s nuclear sites.The SNSC was tasked with overseeing the nuclear talks with the IAEA in July 2025.
After the Israel-US airstrikes on nuclear sites in June, the Iranian parliament passed two laws empowering the SNSC to vet all the inspection requests from the IAEA.
Iran threatens to withdraw from NPT
Iran had warned that it would withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or the NPT, if the E3 nations triggered the snapback mechanism. The Iranian parliament was due to vote on September 8 on the withdrawal from NPT, but the vote was postponed after Foreign Minister Araghchi sought more time for diplomacy.
Now, the question remains whether Iran will withdraw from the NPT after the UN Security Council threatened to reimpose sanctions.
