The IAEA is pleased with the cooperation with Iran
President of Iran visiting a nuclear facility
The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said on Saturday in Tehran that he had “constructive discussions” with Iran that could lead to “important agreements” regarding the Iranian nuclear file. “With the constructive discussions we are having now, (…) I am convinced that we will be able to pave the way to important agreements,” said Grossi, in a press conference with Mohammad Eslami, director of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA). on the second day of his visit to Iran. According to dpa, Grossi described the talks with representatives of the Iranian government as taking place in an “atmosphere of work, honesty, and cooperation”. For his part, Eslami expressed his hope that Grossi’s visit will lead to “a professional cooperation in the future” and announced an international conference in Tehran on nuclear topics, insisting at the same time that Iran does not enrich uranium above the 60% purity level.
Grossi’s visit comes after the discovery of particles of enriched uranium close to the level needed to make an atomic bomb in the underground facility at Fordo, about 100 kilometers south of the capital Tehran. Iran, which denies that it intends to equip itself with nuclear weapons, justified itself by invoking “involuntary fluctuations” during the enrichment process and assured that it had made “no attempt to enrich (uranium) beyond 60%”. The trip, the first in months, comes days ahead of the IAEA’s next Board of Governors meeting on Monday, where there is a chance the United States and its European allies could pursue another resolution to censure Iran. Amid reports that it has opposed a European push for another resolution, Washington has said it will wait for the results of Grossi’s trips to decide its next move. Eslami told reporters on Saturday that Tehran will announce a response if the Western parties to the nuclear deal decide to move ahead with what would be their third resolution in the past year. Iran boosted its nuclear enrichment efforts and curbed IAEA monitoring in response to the previous two resolutions. The nuclear deal was signed in 2015, but Washington unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018 and imposed harsh sanctions on Iran, which gradually abandoned its limits, including a 3.67 percent cap on enrichment. Efforts to restore or renegotiate the deal have stalled in the past year. Tehran maintains that its nuclear program is strictly peaceful and that it does not seek a nuclear weapon.
By Sara Colin
