A possible roadblock for talks between Iran and the US on the future of the nuclear deal was clarified after the UN nuclear inspectorate said it had won the Iran deal to return to Tehran to hold focused talks on doubting the truth of the country’s previous statements on its core areas.
Rafael Grossi, the director general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran and IAEA inspectors had talked past each other, while Iran could not provide credible answers to the inspection’s questions. He said he had decided: ‘we will continue this joyful journey or try something else’.
He said Iran had now agreed in early April to attend direct, focused technical meetings, with the aim of inspectors reporting to an IAEA board meeting in June.
The agreement reached in the last 48 hours means that European countries will not proceed at an IAEA council meeting on Friday with the plans to file a no-confidence motion against Iran.
Questions and answers
What is the nuclear deal with Iran?
In July 2015, Iran and a six-nation negotiating group reached an important agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that ended a 12-year stalemate over Tehran’s nuclear program. The agreement reached in Vienna after nearly two years of intensive talks limited the Iranian program, reassuring the rest of the world that it could not develop nuclear weapons, in exchange for sanction relief.
At the heart of the JCPOA is a direct bargain: Iran’s acceptance of strict limits on its nuclear program in exchange for an escape from the sanctions that grew up more than a decade before the agreement surrounding its economy. Under the agreement, Iran disconnected two-thirds of its centrifuges, shipped 98% of its enriched uranium and filled its plutonium production reactor with concrete. Tehran has also adopted extensive monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has verified ten times since the agreement, and so recently in February that Tehran has complied with its terms. In return, all nuclear-related sanctions were lifted in January 2016, reconnecting Iran to world markets.
The six main powers involved in the key talks with Iran were in a group known as the P5 + 1: the five permanent members of the UN – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the USA – and Germany. The nuclear deal was also enshrined in a UN Security Council resolution incorporating it into international law. The then 15 members of the council unanimously signed the agreement.
On May 8, 2018, US President Donald Trump withdraws his country from the agreement. Iran announced its partial withdrawal from the nuclear deal a year later. Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, said the US could return to the deal if Iran fulfills its obligations.
Saeed Kamali Dehghan, Iran correspondent
Iran has said it would in fact end its cooperation with the IAEA if the motion were to go ahead, which would undermine hopes of informal talks between Iran and the US on how both parties could return to the agreement.
French President Emmanuel Macron has warned his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, that the chances of reviving the nuclear deal would collapse without a clear gesture from Iran.
In response to Iran’s offer to make its disclosure clearer, Europe has said it will postpone its motion of censure to allow time for diplomacy.
Iran has said it will not hold talks with the US if sanctions remain in place, and the US says it will not hold talks until Iran takes further steps to reconcile.
Saeed Khatibzadeh, spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, said: “Today’s developments could keep the path of diplomacy initiated by Iran and the IAEA open.”
The Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi, tweeted that “due to extensive diplomatic consultations … a look at hope threatens to prevent unnecessary tension”.
An article in the Iranian Vatan-e-Emrooz newspaper said this week that Tehran ‘temporarily suspended uranium metal production from [Rouhani]”. The government in Tehran does not dispute the accuracy of the report.
The production of uranium metal is in violation of a 15-year ban in the nuclear power agreement on “the manufacture or acquisition of plutonium or uranium metals or their alloys”. Grossi said he had not been informed by Iran about anything related to uranium metal.
Iran says uranium metal production is part of its plans to supply advanced fuel for a research reactor in Tehran.
Grossi did not elaborate on why he thought his new technical process would elicit more credible responses than had been provided so far, but he is clearly determined not to abandon the process prematurely.
Late last month, Iran suspended some IAEA inspections because US sanctions had not yet been lifted, which was described by Grossi as a “major loss” to the agency. However, after two days of talks between Grossi and Iranian officials in Tehran, a three-month arrangement was agreed in which Iran undertook to hold surveys of a number of activities and monitoring equipment and to hand them over to the IAEA as when US sanctions took place. lifted.
Grossi said the IAEA has a series of questions that have not been answered, but he did not give details. It was reported earlier that Iran may be drilling a uranium metal disk that experts say could be used to create material for a neutron initiator, a key component of a nuclear weapon. A second suspicion was that nuclear material was set up at a place where Iran could test high explosives that could be used to detonate a nuclear weapon.
The agency is also asking Iran about another unexplained site where illegal conversion and processing of uranium has taken place, he said.