The IAEA may once again install monitoring equipment at facilities where the outside world suspects that uranium is being enriched. This is stated by Rafael Grossi, head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), after “constructive discussions” with the head of Iran’s atomic energy organization AEOI, Mohammad Eslami, on Saturday.
Rafael Grossi visited Iran for two days following reports that the country’s stockpile of enriched uranium has grown significantly. And with him home to the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, he had a positive message:
The cameras Iran dismantled last summer are to be set up again.
– We agreed that they should be in full operation again, he said at a press conference in Austria.
Plan for cooperation
At the same press conference, Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), called on all signatories of the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement to fulfill their commitments:
– Three European countries and a few others only focus on Iran’s JCPOA commitments. They themselves have obligations.
He added that, together with Grossi, a plan for the cooperation within the framework of the guarantees for nuclear power operations was arrived at.
Grossi arrived on Friday and, according to diplomatic sources, was due to meet with President Ebrahim Raisi to breathe new life into the dialogue surrounding Iran’s work on nuclear technology.
Grossi’s visit comes at a deadlock in negotiations to renew the JCPOA nuclear deal from 2015. In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal, prompting Iran to stop complying with it as well. Attempts to renew the agreement began in 2021, but stalled last year.