Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Iran Promises Increased Access for UN Nuclear Inspectors, Says Chief

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Iran has agreed to restore surveillance cameras and other monitoring equipment at its nuclear sites, as well as to allow more inspections at a facility where uranium particles enriched to near weapons grade were recently detected, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The announcement came after IAEA chief Rafael Grossi returned from a trip to Iran, during which he met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other top officials in Tehran. The joint statement issued by the IAEA and Iran went into little detail, but diplomats suggest that the possibility of a marked improvement in relations between the two is likely to stave off a Western push for another resolution ordering Iran to cooperate.

Grossi told reporters upon his return to Vienna that there had been a reduction in some of the monitoring activities related to cameras and other equipment that were not operating over the past few months. He did not provide details about which equipment would be restored or how soon it would happen, but appeared to be referring to Iran’s removal of surveillance cameras from its nuclear sites in June 2022, during an earlier standoff with the IAEA. Grossi said that the assurances he received in Tehran were “very concrete” and that Iran had expressed its readiness to provide further information and access to address the outstanding safeguards issues.

The confidential IAEA report to member states seen by Reuters said Grossi “looks forward to … prompt and full implementation of the Joint Statement”. Iran is supposed to provide access to information, locations and people, Grossi told a news conference at Vienna airport soon after landing, suggesting a vast improvement after years of Iranian stonewalling. Iran would also allow the re-installation of extra monitoring equipment that had been put in place under the 2015 nuclear deal, but then removed last year as the deal unravelled in the wake of the US withdrawal from the deal in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump.

Grossi said that follow-up talks in Iran between IAEA and Iranian officials aimed at hammering out the details would happen “very, very soon”. When asked if all monitoring equipment would be re-installed, Grossi replied “Yes.” When asked where it would be re-installed, however, he said only that it would be at a number of locations. Grossi said that this was “very, very important” in terms of continuity of knowledge, referring to the monitoring systems operating again, “in particular in the context of the possibility of the revival of JCPOA”.

Grossi arrived in Iran on Friday with talks deadlocked on reviving a landmark 2015 accord on Iran’s nuclear activity, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari reporting from Tehran said inspection will increase by 50 percent at the Fordow nuclear site, according to Grossi. “That is one of the two sites where enrichment is taking place,” Jabbari said. “The director general also said that the agency will have access to very important people that are part of Iran’s nuclear programme; that is the first time we’ve heard him say this publicly. It seems to be a step in the right direction we see being taken by Iranian officials to increase their cooperation with the agency and to move forward and get away from this impasse that they’ve had with the agency over the past nearly two years.”

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