The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says talks are ongoing with Iran on two sets of important matters, including the science sector, and there is “great expectation” about the process.
Rafael Grossi began meetings in Tehran on Friday that diplomats said were meant to push Iran to co-operate with an IAEA investigation into uranium traces found at undeclared sites that had been enriched close to nuclear-weapons grade.
“Globally speaking, there are two sets of matters that are important. Clearly, there is great expectation about our joint work in order to move forward in the issues that Iran and the agency are working on, to clarify and to bring credible assurances about the nuclear program in Iran,” Grossi told reporters in Tehran.
“The second set of issues, which is very important, has to do with (the) scientific, technical co-operation we are having and will continue to have with Iran,” he said, speaking alongside Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran.
Grossi said the talks were taking place in an “atmosphere of work, honesty and co-operation”.
His visit comes amid contacts with Iran on the origin of the uranium particles enriched to up to 83.7 per cent purity, very close to the 90 per cent threshold for weaponisation, at its underground Fordow enrichment plant, according to a report by the United Nations nuclear watchdog seen by Reuters.
Eslami told reporters on Saturday that the Islamic Republic was enriching uranium up to 60 per cent fissile purity.
Grossi later met President Ebrahim Raisi and “expressed satisfaction with achieving a joint agenda with the Atomic Energy Organisation on measures to smooth the path of co-operation,” Raisi aide Mohammad Jamshidi tweeted.
Raisi added that “co-operation is a bilateral matter, which could continue based on maintaining the independence of the IAEA and the rights of the Iranian nation,” Jamshidi added.
Iran often accuses the IAEA of being manipulated by the US and its allies and of disregarding the Islamic Republic’s right to develop a peaceful nuclear program.
The IAEA rejects the accusations.
Under a 2015 agreement with six world powers, Iran curbed its disputed uranium enrichment program in return for relief from international sanctions.
But the accord began to unravel in 2018 after then-US president Donald Trump pulled out and reimposed tough US sanctions on Iran, prompting Iran to start violating the deal’s strict limits on enrichment.
Iran’s stonewalling of a years-long IAEA investigation into uranium traces found at three undeclared sites prompted the UN watchdog’s 35-country Board of Governors to pass a resolution at its last quarterly meeting in November ordering Iran to co-operate urgently with the inquiry.
That co-operation has not materialised and Grossi hoped the meeting with Raisi would help smooth the way towards ending the deadlock, diplomats in Europe said.
The board’s next quarterly meeting starts on Monday.
Grossi said it was an “issue of necessity to have a very deep, serious, systematic dialogue with Iran. This is why I am here. It’s been too long”.
He said he would “judge our degree of satisfaction at the end of the day”.
