Iran, IAEA agree to nuclear inspection deal with less access

World 11:56 AM - 2021-02-22

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Iran will begin to offer United Nations inspectors "less access" to its nuclear program as part of its pressure campaign on the West, though investigators will still be able to monitor Tehran's work, the U.N. atomic watchdog's chief said Sunday.

 

The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said it reached an agreement with Iran to continue its “necessary” verification and monitoring activities for up to three months, but there will be less access and no more snap inspections starting on Tuesday.

 

Speaking to reporters in Vienna on Sunday following his return from Tehran, the International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said his talks with Iranian officials had produced a “good, reasonable result” that “salvages the situation for now”.

 

“We reached a temporary bilateral technical understanding whereby the agency is going to continue its necessary verification and monitoring activities for a period of up to three months,” Grossi said.

 

“We agreed that we are going to keep this understanding we reached under review constantly – so if we want to suspend it or extend it, this can be done,” he added.

 

“The hope of the IAEA has been to be able to stabilize a situation which was very unstable and I think this technical understanding does it, so that other political consultations at other levels can take place.”

 

But in a statement, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said the Additional Protocol and IAEA access as part of the 2015 nuclear deal will be completely suspended from Tuesday.

 

No access will be given to the nuclear watchdog beyond safeguards of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the organization stressed.

 

It said, however, that Iran has agreed to keep recording information on its inspection equipment for three months without granting IAEA access.

 

“If the sanctions are completely lifted within three months, Iran will give this information to the agency. If not, the information will be deleted forever,” the statement said.

 

Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who spearheaded the law that limits inspections from Tuesday, also emphasized in a tweet on Monday that any access beyond non-proliferation safeguards would be “strictly forbidden and illegal”.

 

He also pointed out an article of the legislation he passed has foreseen judicial punishments for potential violators.

 

The IAEA is allowed to conduct inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities under the 2015 nuclear deal.

 

The landmark 2015 nuclear deal was signed between Iran on the one side and US, Russia, Germany, France, UK, and China on the other. The deal was designed to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions in return for sanctions relief.

 

In 2018, then-President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. unilaterally out of the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, saying it needed to be renegotiated.

 

Even as Iran has backed away from restrictions of the deal since then to put pressure on the other signatories -- Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China -- to provide new economic incentives to offset U.S. sanctions, those countries have insisted it's critical to keep the deal alive so that inspectors are able to continue to verify Iran's nuclear activities.

 

From Washington, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden remained willing to negotiate with Iran over a return to the nuclear deal, an offer earlier dismissed by Zarif.

 

"He is prepared to go to the table to talk to the Iranians about how we get strict constraints back on their nuclear program," Sullivan told CBS's "Face the Nation." "That offer still stands, because we believe diplomacy is the best way to do it."

 

 

 

PUKmedia