DUBAI (Reuters) - The UN nuclear watchdog's "political moves" will push countries to exit the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council said on Thursday.
Mohsen Rezaei made his comments a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors passed a resolution reporting Iran to the UN Security Council for breaching its non-proliferation obligations.
The resolution follows a previous one passed on June 12 last year — the day before Israel started bombing Iran's nuclear facilities, soon followed by the United States — that found Iran in "non-compliance" with those obligations.
Reporting the breach to the council required another resolution.
While the Security Council is unlikely to take concrete action against Iran since its allies Russia and China are permanent, veto-wielding members, the move is an escalation in a diplomatic standoff between Iran and Western powers.
Iran has not let IAEA inspectors return to its bombed sites, including the three uranium-enrichment plants at the heart of its nuclear programme that were destroyed or badly damaged in the military strikes.
Tehran has also not accounted for its stock of enriched uranium, some of which was enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from the roughly 90% of weapons-grade.