Iran refuses to hand over images of nuclear site to UN watchdog as inspection deal expired

On Sunday, Iran said it will not give images of nuclear sites to the UN watchdog IAEA as the inspection deal time expired between the two sides, the state media reported.

 According to Reuters, on Sunday, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament said "The deal has lapsed… any of the data recorded won't be given to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and all the information will remain in Iran's possession."

“Nothing has been decided yet, nor negative or positive.”  “Nor the continuation of the deal or on the cancellation of the information. We are in a premature stage currently,” Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Khatibzadeh told reporters.

The IAEA and Tehran struck the three-month inspection agreement in February to pad the blow of Iran decreasing its participation with the organization, and it permitted observing of certain exercises that would some way or another have been hacked out to proceed. 

Under that deal, the information is continued to be collected in a black-box-type system, and the IAEA could only access it at a later date.

Three years prior, former US President Donald Trump pulled out from the 2015 nuclear deal and reemployed sanctions on Tehran; Iran responded by breaching many rules from the atomic deal. 

On Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expressed that it had received no answer from Iran over the conceivable extension of the temporary agreement on inspection of the Iranian atomic facilities that lapsed. 

On Friday, the IAEA had requested Iran to immediately reply on whether it would expand the inspection agreement, and the Iranian diplomat responded that Tehran was under no obligation to respond. 

Iran stated on Wednesday that the country's Supreme National Security Council would decide on whether to renew the monitoring deal on Atomic facilities following its expiry.