UN nuclear agency members draft resolution accusing Iran of failing to meet obligations

VIENNA (AP) — Western nations are planning to table a resolution at a meeting of the U.N.’s nuclear agency that will find Iran in non-compliance with its so-called safeguards obligations for the first time in 20 years, a senior western diplomat said Thursday.

The move comes at a sensitive time as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration seeks to reach a deal with Tehran to limit its nuclear program. The two sides have held several rounds of talks, so far without agreement.

The draft resolution will be jointly tabled by France, the U.K. and Germany, known as the E3, together with the United States, the senior Western diplomat said.

In Washington, the State Department said the Trump administration was consulting with European allies about the next step.

“We are coordinating with our partners on our posture for the June 9-13 IAEA Board of Governors meeting and are considering all of our options,” the department said. “We continue to have serious concerns about Iran’s nuclear program and its longstanding failure to uphold its safeguards obligations.”

In an April 2024 report, the U.S. State Department assessed that Iran's “unwillingness to provide adequate responses to the IAEA’s questions regarding potential undeclared nuclear material and activities" constitutes "a violation of its obligation to accept safeguards under Article III of the NPT Treaty."

The draft resolution, which was seen by The Associated Press, says: “Iran’s many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran ... constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement.”

The draft resolution furthermore finds that the IAEA's “inability ... to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful gives rise to questions that are within the competence of the United Nations Security Council, as the organ bearing the main responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.”

It requests IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi “to continue his efforts to implement this and previous resolutions and to report again, including any further developments on the issues."

The text of the draft may change before it is formally tabled, as board members have the opportunity to suggest amendments.

Under the so-called safeguards obligations, that are part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is legally bound to declare all nuclear material and activities and allow IAEA inspectors to verify that none of it is being diverted from peaceful uses.

In the IAEA’s “comprehensive report” that was circulated among members states last weekend, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said that Iran’s cooperation with the agency has “been less than satisfactory” when it comes to uranium traces discovered by agency inspectors at several locations in Iran that Tehran has failed to declare as nuclear sites.

The IAEA has been seeking answers from Iran regarding the origin and current location of the nuclear material since 2019.

Western officials suspect that the uranium traces discovered by the IAEA could provide evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until 2003.

Iran denies ever having had a nuclear weapons program and says its program is entirely peaceful.

The senior Western diplomat called the resolution a “serious step,” but added that western nations are “not closing the door to diplomacy on this issue.”

“The objective of the resolution is for Iran to resolve the issue,” the source added, which is why the resolution will not immediately refer Iran’s non-compliance to the U.N. Security Council to consider triggering more sanctions. “They will have a window to finally comply and respond to all the requests that have been made over the last six years.”

The board of governors “stresses its support for a diplomatic solution to the problems posed by the Iranian nuclear programme, leading to an agreement that addresses all international concerns related to Iran’s nuclear activities, encouraging all parties to constructively engage in diplomacy,” the draft resolution reads.

However, if Iran fails to cooperate, an extraordinary IAEA board meeting will likely be held in the summer, during which another resolution could get passed that will refer the issue to the Security Council, the senior diplomat said.

The three European nations have threatened in the past to reinstate sanctions that have been lifted under the original 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which expires on Oct. 18.

Iran has previously retaliated to resolutions passed by the agency's board by further expanding its nuclear program and banning inspectors.

Iranian deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi warned the IAEA against taking any “politically-motivated action” by some board members, as this could undermine cooperation between Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog, he wrote in a post on X.

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This screen grab from video shows International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi giving an interview in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, June 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdelrahman Shaheen)

A week after immigrant groups filed a lawsuit, California said Tuesday it will delay the revocations of 17,000 commercial driver's licenses until March to allow more time to ensure that truckers and bus drivers who legally qualify for the licenses can keep them.

But U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the state may lose $160 million if it doesn't meet a Jan. 5 deadline to revoke the licenses. He already withheld $40 million in federal funding because he said California isn't enforcing English proficiency requirements for truckers.

California only sent out notices to invalidate the licenses after Duffy pressured the state to make sure immigrants who are in the country illegally aren't granted the licenses. An audit found problems like licenses that remained valid long after an immigrant's authorization to be in the country expired or licenses where the state couldn't prove it checked a driver's immigration status.

“California does NOT have an ‘extension’ to keep breaking the law and putting Americans at risk on the roads,” Duffy posted on the social platform X.

The Transportation Department has been prioritizing the issue ever since a truck driver who was not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people in August.

California officials said they are working to make sure the federal Transportation Department is satisfied with the reforms they have put in place. The state had planned to resume issuing commercial driver's licenses in mid-December, but the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration blocked that.

“Commercial drivers are an important part of our economy — our supply chains don’t move, and our communities don’t stay connected without them,” said DMV Director Steve Gordon.

The Sikh Coalition, a national group defending the civil rights of Sikhs, and the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the California drivers. They said immigrant truck drivers were being unfairly targeted. The driver in the Florida crash and the driver in another fatal crash in California in October are both Sikhs.

Immigrants account for about 20% of all truck drivers, but these non-domiciled licenses immigrants can receive only represent about 5% of all commercial driver’s licenses or about 200,000 drivers. The Transportation Department also proposed new restrictions that would severely limit which noncitizens could get a license, but a court put the new rules on hold.

Mumeeth Kaur, the legal director of the Sikh Coalition, said this delay “is an important step towards alleviating the immediate threat that these drivers are facing to their lives and livelihoods.”

Duffy threatened to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding from California, Pennsylvania and Minnesota after audits found significant problems under the existing rules like commercial licenses being valid long after an immigrant truck driver’s work permit expired.

Trucking trade groups have praised the effort to get unqualified drivers who shouldn't have licenses or can’t speak English off the road. They also applauded the Transportation Department's moves to go after questionable commercial driver’s license schools.

FILE - A truck departs from a Port of Oakland shipping terminal on Nov. 10, 2021, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

FILE - Big rigs stack up at the Flying J Truck Stop along Interstate 70 near the small Colorado plains community of Limon, May 21, 2009. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)