Resolution critical of Iran the first of its kind since 2012 Tehran has been blocking access two sites for months JEDDAH: The board of governors at the UN’s nuclear watchdog passed a resolution critical of Iran on Friday, the first of its kind since 2012, as tension mounts over Tehran’s nuclear program. The resolution was proposed by France, Germany and Britain, and supported by the US, despite an American wish for a stronger text. US Ambassador to the UN in Vienna Jackie Wolcott said the resolution marked “a new phase” in the dispute and that Iran should not assume it now has “a free pass until September” when the next board of governors’ meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will take place. “We’ll be watching very carefully in the next days and weeks,” she said. Saudi Arabia also expressed its concern in Vienna over Iran’s use of its nuclear agreement for non-peaceful purposes. Addressing the IAEA governors in Vienna, Prince Abdullah bin Khalid bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, Saudi ambassador to Austria, said Iran was still exploiting the deal to expand its activities toward obtaining nuclear weapons. Friday’s resolution urges Tehran to provide inspectors from the IAEA with access to two sites in Iran to help clarify whether undeclared nuclear activity took place there in the early 2000s. It “calls on Iran to fully cooperate with the agency and satisfy the agency’s requests without any further delay, including by providing prompt access to the locations specified by the Agency.” Harvard scholar and Iranian affairs expert Majid Rafizadeh has said the Iranian regime is now “comfortably” violating all the restrictions of the nuclear deal it never signed. “If the Iranian government is advancing its nuclear program for peaceful purposes as its leaders claim, why has Tehran repeatedly failed to report its nuclear facilities, including those at Natanz and Arak, to the IAEA?” asked Rafizadeh. “Also, why does the Iranian government keep refusing to answer the IAEA’s questions regarding its recently revealed secret nuclear facilities?“ Iran has been blocking access to the sites for months, prompting a growing diplomatic row. The resolution was carried by 25 votes in favor versus two against, with seven abstentions: South Africa, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Mongolia, Azerbaijan and Niger. Russia and China, both of which had spoken out against the prospect of a resolution earlier this week, voted against. Earlier this week Iran warned that such a resolution would be “counterproductive” and that it would take “appropriate measures” in response. Russia’s Ambassador to the UN in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov echoed that position after the resolution was passed on Friday. “While stressing the need for Tehran and IAEA to settle this problem without delay, we believe that the resolution can be counterproductive,” he tweeted. The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain issued a statement after talks in Berlin on Friday, noting that the resolution passed with a “very strong majority.” The ball is now in Iran’s court, said the US envoy. “The fact of the matter is this is entirely Iran’s decision,” Wolcott said. “They could fix this overnight if they would just decide to comply with their obligations with the IAEA.” Germany, France and Britain in January invoked a dispute resolution mechanism designed to resolve issues with the 2015 deal or refer them to the UN Security Council. On Friday, their foreign ministers said that “we will seek a ministerial meeting to urge Iran to cooperate and to take stock of where we stand” in that process. Despite the row over the two sites, the IAEA says it still has the access it needs to inspect Iran’s declared nuclear facilities, as per its mandate under the landmark deal between Iran and world powers reached in 2015. However, the latest dispute comes as that deal further unravels, with Iran continuing to breach its limits on nuclear activity in retaliation to the US withdrawing from the accord in 2018 and reimposing sanctions. Speaking to reporters after the resolution was passed on Friday, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said it would be “absolutely unacceptable” if an example were to be set that states can be selective in their implementation of agreements with the UN agency. “There are no exceptions. There is no Additional Protocol a la carte,” Grossi said, referring to the agreement under which the IAEA requested access to the sites. “I intend to sit down with Iran very soon and to try to solve this as soon as possible,” he said, adding that Iran’s ambassador to the UN in Vienna Kazem Gharib Abadi would be his first port of call. Earlier this week Gharib Abadi argued in a statement that the IAEA’s access requests were based on allegations from Iran’s arch-enemy Israel. Additional information provided by the IAEA in support of its requests “were merely some commercial satellite imageries that contained no convincing underlying reason” to provide access, he said. Also, on Friday the British Foreign Office said that Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab would be meeting his French and German counterparts in Berlin with “a diplomatic solution to Iran’s destabilizing activities in the Middle East” on the agenda.