IRANIAN TALKS: NO PROGRESS

IAEA - NOV 24 2021 - Extensive negotiations yesterday in Iran to address outstanding nuclear verification issues “proved inconclusive,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told the Agency’s Board of Governors today, as he presented the 35-member Board with his latest report on verification and monitoring in Iran.

In Tehran on 23 November, Mr Grossi met with Mohammad Eslami, the Vice President of Iran and Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The IAEA has been verifying and monitoring the implementation by Iran of its nuclear related commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), sometimes referred to as the Iran nuclear deal. However, since February 2021, verification and monitoring activities have been affected as a result of Iran’s decision to stop the implementation of its nuclear-related commitments under the JCPOA.

A temporary agreement between Iran and the IAEA in February facilitated the maintenance of continuity of knowledge, Mr Grossi said. “However, the repeated prolongation of the agreement, which has now been in place for around nine months, is becoming a significant challenge to the Agency’s ability to restore this continuity of knowledge,” he stated.

Lack of access to the Karaj workshop to IAEA inspectors is “seriously affecting the Agency’s ability to restore continuity of knowledge at the workshop, which has been widely recognized as essential in relation to a return to the JCPOA,” Mr Grossi added.

Negotiations among parties to the JCPOA, Iran and five world powers, are expected to resume in Vienna next week.

Referring to the presence of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at three locations in Iran not declared to the Agency, Mr Grossi stated that it “is a clear indication that nuclear material and/or equipment contaminated by nuclear material has been present at these locations.”

He also talked of “incidences of Agency inspectors being subjected to excessively invasive physical searches by security officials at nuclear facilities in Iran” and called upon Iran to remedy the situation, to implement security procedures at nuclear facilities in a manner consistent with internationally accepted security practices and to respect the privileges and immunities of the IAEA and its inspectors.

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