Iran says deal with UN nuclear inspectors is 'null and void'

UN agency wants access to check Tehran is not developing an atomic bomb

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei mocked US claims to have set back Iran's nuclear industry. EPA

Iran says a recent deal that paved the way for UN nuclear inspectors to visit is "null and void” after the country was placed under sanctions.

The deal had been agreed in Egypt last month between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which wants to check Tehran is not developing a nuclear weapons programme. The IAEA says Iran has blocked access for years.

Although the terms were vague, the IAEA said the Cairo deal included practical arrangements to "resume inspection activities in Iran”. But it has since been derailed after Britain, France and Germany pushed through a motion at the UN, restoring sanctions on Iran for flouting limits on its nuclear activities.

Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said while meeting a counterpart from Iraq on Monday that the Cairo agreement had been cancelled after the three European states triggered the UN sanctions, in a process referred to as "snapback”.

Iran had "announced after the Cairo agreement that if they activate the snapback, the agreement will be null and void, and that's what happened,” Mr Larijani said, according to state media. "If the IAEA has a proposal for co-operation, it should request it to be reviewed by a committee in the National Security Council.”

Iran had agreed in 2015 to limit activities such as uranium enrichment that could be part of developing a nuclear bomb – although it insists it has no such plans. In return, world powers agreed to lift sanctions.

But Iran started enriching uranium beyond those limits after US President Donald Trump quit the agreement in 2018. Now, the European powers say Iran's stockpile of enriched nuclear fuel is worryingly large and "entirely outside of IAEA monitoring”.

Fears over Iran's ambitions spiralled into a 12-day Middle East air war in June as Israel attacked its nuclear sites and assassinated senior figures. The US entered the war with a bombing of a key Iranian bunker, before a ceasefire was declared.

Mr Trump maintains the bombing dealt a serious blow to Iran's nuclear capabilities. But the extent of the damage remains unclear and Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took to social media to mock Mr Trump on Monday.

"The US President boasts that they’ve bombed and destroyed Iran’s nuclear industry,” he said. "Very well, in your dreams!".