Iran said Thursday it canceled the accreditation of a UN nuclear inspector after she triggered an alarm last week at the entrance to the Natanz uranium enrichment plant.  

The security at the entrance to the plant in central Iran had "triggered an alarm" raising concern that she could be carrying a "suspect product" on her, the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) said in a statement posted online. As a result, she was denied entry, it added, without specifying whether or not anything had been found in her possession.  

The AEOI said it had reported the incident to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and notified that its inspector's accreditation has been withdrawn. She has since left Iran for Vienna, where the IAEA is based, it said, without saying when.  

"Iran's representative to the IAEA will present a full report on the matter" in Vienna later Thursday, it added. 

According to a source close to the IAEA, the 35 members of its council of governors will hold a special meeting dedicated to Iran.  

Under a landmark 2015 deal between Iran and major powers, its nuclear facilities are subject to continuous monitoring by the IAEA.

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The AEOI said earlier on Thursday that Iran had resumed uranium enrichment at its underground Fordow nuclear facility, further stepping away from the deal. 

The agreement bans enrichment and nuclear material from Fordow. But with feedstock gas entering its centrifuges, the facility, built inside a mountain, will move from the permitted status of research plant to being an active nuclear site.

"After all successful preparations ... injection of uranium gas to centrifuges started on Thursday at Fordow ... all the process has been supervised by the inspectors of the UN nuclear watchdog," the AEOI said in a statement reported by Iranian media. 

Iran has gradually scaled back its commitments to the deal, under which it curbed its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of most international sanctions, after the United States reneged on the agreement last year. 

"The process will take a few hours to stabilize and by Saturday, when International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors will again visit the site, a uranium enrichment level of 4.5 percent will have been achieved," AEOI's spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told state TV. 

The United States, which withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran, reiterated a statement from Tuesday, calling Iran's move a "big step in the wrong direction." 

Commenting on the latest developments, Middle East analyst Meir Javedanfar told CGTN that Iran seems to have decided to "get further and further away from the deal," which runs a "great risk" because this could push other signatories including France, Germany, the UK, China and Russia to "start moving away from the deal" as well. 

"That would bring the Iranian economy to a new tailspin," he said.

The U.S. on Thursday called for "serious steps" to be taken after Iran resumed uranium enrichment at the Fordow plant.  

"Iran's expansion of proliferation-sensitive activities raises concerns that Iran is positioning itself to have the option of a rapid nuclear breakout," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. "It is now time for all nations to reject this regime's nuclear extortion and take serious steps to increase pressure." 

Meanwhile, the U.S. and the European Union expressed concern over Iran's holding of an inspector from the UN nuclear watchdog last week, with the U.S. envoy to the agency calling it an "outrageous provocation" that must have consequences.

It was reported on Wednesday that Iran had briefly held the inspector and seized her travel documents in what appears to be the first incident of its kind since Iran's nuclear deal with major powers was struck in 2015. Iran confirmed that it prevented the inspector from gaining access to its main uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz.  

"The detention of an IAEA inspector in Iran is an outrageous provocation. All Board members need to make clear now and going forward that such actions are completely unacceptable, will not be tolerated, and must have consequences," the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Jackie Wolcott, said in a statement to the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors. 

The EU said in its statement that it was "deeply concerned" by what happened.  

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA told reporters the inspector was soon repatriated and Tehran had asked that she be removed from the list of designated inspectors. 

"We understand that the incident was resolved and call upon Iran to ensure that no such incidents occur in the future," the EU statement said.

(With input from AFP, Reuters)

(Cover: A picture released by Iran's Atomic Energy Organization on November 6, 2019 shows the entrance of the nuclear power plant of Natanz, some 300 kilometers south of Tehran. /VCG Photo)