The IAEA director general hailed a visit to Tehran on Saturday as “a step in the right direction”, as Iran agreed to reconnect surveillance cameras at several nuclear sites and increase the pace of inspections.
“We have reached an agreement so that the cameras and the surveillance systems will operate again,” International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi told reporters at Vienna airport.
In addition, the number of visits to the Fordo underground plant, where uranium particles have recently been detected enriched to a level close to the threshold of the atomic bomb, will be increased by 50%.
Back in Austria, where the Agency is headquartered, after two days of meetings in Iran and an interview in particular with President Ebrahim Raïssi, Mr. Grossi insisted on the importance of these “very concrete” advances.
Because the Islamic Republic had severely limited inspections and disconnected surveillance cameras last year, plunging the IAEA into limbo, in a context of deteriorating relations between Iran and Western powers.
“We have stopped the hemorrhage of information” available to the IAEA, said Mr. Grossi. In recent months, for lack of sufficient monitoring, the Agency had said that it was no longer able to guarantee the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.
“It’s very, very important”, “especially in view of reviving the agreement” of 2015 which limited Iran’s atomic activities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.
Negotiations between Tehran and the States Parties (China, Russia, United Kingdom, France and Germany), with the indirect participation of the United States, have been stalled since August 2022.
This pact, known by the acronym of JCPOA, has been moribund since the withdrawal of the United States decided in 2018 by President Donald Trump, and Iran has gradually freed itself from its commitments.
In Tehran, the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (OIEA), Mohammad Eslami, had called on the protagonists of the discussions to also make a gesture.
“The three European countries and other countries are only focusing on Iran’s obligations under the JCPOA. They also have obligations that they must meet,” he said.
“Iran will never sacrifice its national interests”, underlined Mr. Eslami, while President Raisi also insisted with Mr. Grossi on the defense of the “rights of the Iranian nation”.
“We hope that the IAEA will adopt a completely professional approach [towards the Iranian nuclear file] and that the political powers (…) will not affect the activities of the Agency”, added Mr. Raisi, according to the site. of the presidency.
The head of the UN agency must now present the results of his visit during an IAEA Board of Governors scheduled for next week in Vienna.
Despite the progress made, “today’s announcement is not enough to reduce the growing risk of proliferation posed by Iran”, reacted Kelsey Davenport, expert of the Arms Control Association.
The United States and the Europeans “should seek to capitalize on this momentum by building diplomatic momentum that would re-engage Iran in negotiations,” she said, referring to a possible resolution in response to Fordo’s discovery.
Iran, which denies wanting to acquire nuclear weapons, justified itself by citing “involuntary fluctuations” during the enrichment process and by assuring “not to have made any attempt to enrich beyond 60%”, as Mr. Eslami repeated on Saturday.
France nevertheless judged Thursday that it was “an unprecedented and extremely serious development”.
Saturday, Rafael Grossi did not want to be alarmist on this point.
“We detected a certain level and then we asked for clarification. But by continuously observing the installation, we found that there was no production or accumulation of uranium” at this level, has he specified.
Regarding the discovery last year of traces of enriched uranium at three undeclared sites, Iran was the subject of a call to order at the last IAEA meeting, in November 2022, for his lack of cooperation.
04/03/2023 21:12:14 – Vienna (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
