According to the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog organization, Iran is deleting 27 monitoring cameras from nuclear facilities.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, commented at an abruptly-called news conference in Vienna on Thursday.

Grossi stated that the action posed a "serious challenge" to their efforts, and Iran did not immediately acknowledge it.

Grossi stated that this would leave forty or fifty cameras in Iran. Grossi said cameras would be removed from Iran's underground nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz and its facility in Isfahan.

Grossi continued, "We are in a very tense situation with (nuclear deal) negotiations at a low point." "We are now adding this to the picture; as you can see, it's not a particularly attractive addition."

Monitoring devices for enrichment shutdown

On Wednesday, Iran said it cut off two devices the IAEA uses to monitor enrichment at Natanz. Grossi confirmed this, stating that one of the items was a crucial meter that monitors Iran's uranium enrichment at Natanz.

On Wednesday, Iranian officials warned to take additional action within a multi-year conflict that threatens to escalate into other attacks.

This occurred before a vote by the IAEA's board criticizing Iran for its alleged inability to provide "credible information" regarding the presence of artificial nuclear material at three undeclared facilities in the country.

Earlier Thursday, the IAEA said Grossi told members that Iran had notified the agency that it planned to install two more cascades of the IR-6 at Natanz. A flood is a series of interconnected centrifuges that enrich uranium gas by quickly spinning it.

An IR-6 centrifuge spins uranium ten times faster than the first-generation centrifuges Iran was restricted to under the 2015 nuclear deal with the international community. As of February, Iran already had been spinning a cascade of IR-6s at its underground facility at Fordo, according to the IAEA.

Talks regarding the tattered nuclear deal stopped

Iran had previously stated that it intended to deploy one cascade of IR-6s at Natanz, located approximately 200 kilometers south of Tehran. The IAEA said it "verified" the continued installation of that cascade Monday, although the newly promised two more waterfalls had yet to commence.

In consideration of the lifting of economic sanctions, Iran promised in 2015 to severely restrict its uranium enrichment in exchange for lifting those penalties. In 2018, then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement unilaterally, heightening tensions throughout the greater Middle East and triggering a series of attacks and events.

Since April, negotiations in Vienna on Iran's shattered nuclear accord have stopped. Iran has improved centrifuges and a fast-rising stockpile of enriched uranium after the agreement's collapse.

Nonproliferation experts warn that Iran has enriched enough uranium to 60 percent purity — a short technological step from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent — to produce one nuclear weapon if so chooses.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, while experts from the United Nations and Western security agencies assert that Iran had an organized military nuclear program as of 2003.

Specialists believe Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon would still require more time, but they warn that Tehran's progress makes the program more hazardous. Israel has previously vowed to launch a preemptive assault against Iran and is already accused of several recent assassinations of Iranian officials.