Sun 05 March 2023:
Iran has agreed to ramp up inspections and reconnect cameras and other monitoring equipment at its nuclear sites, according to the head of the United Nations atomic agency.
After meeting with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other top officials in Tehran on Saturday, Rafael Grossi made the announcement.
His visit followed the discovery of uranium particles enriched to near weapons-grade level at an underground Iranian facility and came just two days before a quarterly meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) 35-nation board of governors.
“Over the past few months, there was a reduction in some of the monitoring activities” related to cameras and other equipment “which were not operating,” Grossi told reporters upon his return to Vienna, Austria, where the agency has its headquarters.
“We have agreed that those will be operating again.”
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.
The IAEA and Iran also issued a joint statement following Grossi’s visit, saying Tehran has “expressed its readiness to … provide further information and access to address the outstanding safeguards issues”.
The statement gave little additional detail, but 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, the Reuters news agency cited diplomats as saying.
A 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 reporters, suggesting a vast improvement after years of Iranian stonewalling.
“This is very, very important” in terms of continuity of knowledge, “in particular in the context of the possibility of the revival of JCPOA”, Grossi said, referring to the 2015 accord on Iran’s nuclear activity, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Follow-up talks in Iran between IAEA and Iranian officials aimed at hammering out the details would happen “very, very soon”, Grossi said.
The IAEA chief arrived in Iran on Friday with talks deadlocked on reviving the 2015 pact between Iran and world powers that promised Tehran relief from biting economic sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear activities.
A confidential IAEA report earlier this week said uranium particles enriched up to 83.7 percent — just less than the 90 percent needed to produce an atomic bomb — had been detected at Iran’s underground Fordow plant about 100km (62 miles) south of Tehran.
Grossi told reporters that the IAEA needed to further inspect the facility and that Iran had agreed to “50 percent more inspections” there.
Iran denies wanting to acquire nuclear weapons and says it had made no attempt to enrich uranium beyond 60-percent purity.
The discovery came after Iran had substantially modified an interconnection between two centrifuge clusters enriching uranium without declaring it to the IAEA.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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