The United States and Iran traded sharply worded accusations on Tuesday at the United Nations Security Council, with Washington offering conditional talks while Tehran blamed the standoff on US withdrawal from the nuclear deal and strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June.
Speaking during the session, Morgan Ortagus, counselor of the US Mission to the United Nations, said Washington remained open to formal negotiations but only if Iran agreed to direct talks and abandoned uranium enrichment.
“We’d like to make it clear to the entire world that the United States remains available for formal talks with Iran, but only if Tehran is prepared for direct and meaningful dialogue. Direct and meaningful.”
“Foremost, there can be no enrichment inside of Iran, and that remains our principle,” she added.
Ortagus said President Donald Trump had repeatedly pursued diplomacy with Tehran.
“In both administrations, President Trump extended the hand of diplomacy to Iran,” she said. “But instead of taking that hand of diplomacy, you continue to put your hand in the fire. Step away from the fire, sir, and take President Trump’s hand of diplomacy.”
Iran rejected that framing.
“We appreciate any fair and meaningful negotiation, but insisting on zero enrichment policy is contrary to our rights as a member of the NPT," Tehran's UN envoy Amir Saeed Iravani said.
"Iran will not bow down to any pressure and intimidation.”
Iravani argued that the crisis stemmed from Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement and subsequent actions by the United States and its allies.
"The root causes of the current situation are clear and did not emerge overnight or in isolation. They lie in the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA in 2018, the sustained and deliberate non-compliance of the three European countries with their commitments and the subsequent military aggression by the United States and the Israeli regime against Iran's peaceful safeguard nuclear facilities.
The remarks referred to the 12-day war in June, when Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran in the middle of nuclear negotiations, drawing in the United States and derailing a planned new round of talks.
Tuesday's Council session revealed deep divisions over whether UN sanctions on Iran have been reinstated under the snapback mechanism of Resolution 2231.
Britain, France and Germany argue that Iran’s nuclear noncompliance has restored sanctions automatically, while China and Russia — backed by Tehran — reject that claim and question the Council’s authority to continue addressing the issue.
“The simplest task is to build a nuclear bomb, because it does not need fuel control and explodes at once,” Behrouz Kamalvandi said on Saturday, calling it much simpler than developing a nuclear power plant.
“Building a nuclear power plant, which needs control of fuel and reaction levels, is difficult and technical.”
Kamalvandi said Iran has reached "the edge of power in the nuclear field, and there is no unknown issue left for us."
Before a 12-day war in June that culminated in US airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities and paused any uranium enrichment in Iran, the country was enriching uranium to near weapons-grade purity levels.
While Tehran denies seeking a nuclear weapon, the United States and Western countries want Iran to end uranium enrichment, arguing that enrichment beyond 20% has no civilian purpose.
UN inspections
The UN nuclear watchdog has resumed inspection activities in Iran but remains unable to access several of the country’s most sensitive nuclear sites following June strikes, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said last week.
“We are only allowed to access sites that were not hit,” he said, calling the resumption important but insufficient.
Grossi said Iran cannot unilaterally decide whether inspectors may enter the damaged facilities.
“If they say it is unsafe and inspectors cannot go there, then inspectors must be allowed to confirm that this is indeed the case,” Grossi said in an interview with Russian state media. “That determination has to be made by the agency.”
Kamalvandi, however, says the UN nuclear watchdog's requests are unreasonable.
“The agency’s insistence that access and inspections take place strictly under a safeguards agreement written for non-war conditions is unreasonable,” he said.
Kamalvandi said Iran believes the current safeguards framework cannot be applied in the same way after military attacks.
“This framework was written for ordinary circumstances,” he said. “When nuclear facilities and materials are damaged in a military attack, the conditions are different.”
He said granting access to Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan while security threats persist could endanger Iran, and added that Tehran is considering other ways to account for nuclear material without inspectors entering the sites.
The standoff follows the June war that began with Israeli strikes on June 13 on nuclear facilities, senior military figures and nuclear scientists, followed by the US attacks on June 22.
Grossi said the three sites at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan bombed by the US are central to uranium processing, conversion and enrichment, but stressed that Iran’s nuclear program extends well beyond them.
“Iran has much more than these three facilities,” he said. “It has a very developed nuclear program, with research activities and many other sites.”
He cited Iran’s operating nuclear power plant at Bushehr and plans for additional reactors, including projects with Russia, adding: “Work continues in all these areas.”
The IAEA has long sought answers from Iran over past nuclear activities and the whereabouts of undeclared nuclear material, issues Grossi has said cannot be resolved without access to relevant sites.