The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, arrived in Tehran on Sunday, September 12, for talks that could just as easily lead to an end to the impasse between Iran and the ‘West that lead to a failure of negotiations around the relaunch of the Iran nuclear deal. Mr. Grossi is due to meet the Vice President of the Islamic Republic and head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Eslami. According to the IAEA, Mr. Grossi will hold a press conference upon his return to Vienna on Sunday evening.
The visit comes as the IAEA, the UN nuclear gendarme, issued a particularly harsh report earlier this week accusing Iran of a lack of cooperation, and a meeting of the board of governors of the body is being held next week. .
Mr. Grossi, who is making his second trip to Iran this year, is due to discuss with Mr. Eslami about “The temporary arrangement between [l’Iran] and the IAEA on the supervision of IAEA inspectors and the content of the Agency’s surveillance cameras installed in Iranian nuclear centers ”, explains in its Sunday edition the newspaper Iran, government publication.
Restricted access by IAEA inspectors
Under a law passed in December by its parliament, Iran in February restricted the access of IAEA inspectors to some of its nuclear facilities. The Islamic Republic has refused since that date to provide in real time the recordings of the cameras and other surveillance tools that the UN agency has installed in these locations. A compromise had been negotiated to ensure a certain degree of surveillance but it expired in June.
The issue of IAEA surveillance cameras is part of the broader framework of discussions to try to save the international Iran nuclear deal reached in Vienna in 2015.
Separate and indirect talks between the United States and Iran on the return to compliance with the nuclear agreement have been interrupted since June. Washington and its European allies have urged the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi, who took office in August, to resume talks.
As part of the 2015 agreement between Iran and the great powers, Tehran accepted restrictions on its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against it.
President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018 and reinstated painful economic sanctions. Iran retaliated from 2019 by violating many fundamental restrictions of the agreement, such as enriching uranium to a higher degree, closer to what would be necessary for the design of nuclear weapons.
Western powers must decide whether or not to pass a resolution criticizing Iran and increasing pressure on the country at a meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors next week. Such a resolution could jeopardize the resumption of talks with Tehran.