Lacking any credible peaceful purpose, Tehran's expanding nuclear program blatantly defies international concerns, the latest US mission statement to the UN nuclear watchdog warned.

“Iran continues to move further in the wrong direction. Iran continues to expand its nuclear program, to install additional advanced centrifuge cascades, and to produce highly enriched uranium for which it has no credible peaceful purpose,” US Ambassador Laura S.H. Holgate told the IAEA Board of Governors.

The statement stressed that the Islamic Republic of Iran is continually expanding its nuclear program by installing additional cascades of advanced centrifuges and producing highly enriched uranium. "Indeed, Iran’s production of 60 percent enriched uranium runs counter to the behavior of all other non-nuclear weapons states party to the NPT,” the statement said.

Confidential IAEA reports reviewed by Reuters on September 3rd indicate that Iran is persisting with its high-level uranium enrichment program, which could be utilized for the production of nuclear weapons. These reports stressed that despite all concerns, Tehran has increased its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

Western countries have long argued that there is no civilian justification for Iran to enrich uranium to such a high level.

On the same day the US delivered its latest statement, Russia's Permanent Representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, remarked at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting that "if the JCPOA were fully implemented, almost all of the existing concerns about Iran's nuclear program would have been resolved." Ulyanov asserted that the failure to fully implement the agreement was a consequence of the policies adopted by Western countries, particularly the US.

Earlier, Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the IAEA, also highlighted during a meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors that Iran's stockpiles of enriched uranium at 20% and 60% levels continue to grow. He further noted that the Agency does not have adequate information about the production and inventory of centrifuges in Iran.

He noted that the Islamic Republic has also increased the number of cascades used for UF6 enrichment.

According to Grossi's report, the IAEA has lost continuity of knowledge about the production and inventory of centrifuges, rotors, and diaphragms, as well as heavy water and uranium ore concentrate in Iran.

In 2021, the Islamic Republic ceased fulfilling its nuclear commitments under the JCPOA, including the provisional application of the Additional Protocol. Since then, the IAEA has been denied supplementary access in Iran.