inspector access<\/a> and restore monitoring equipment, and said he\u2019s sending a technical team in the next few days to follow up on Tehran\u2019s commitments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI hope there won’t be any trouble,” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi told Al-Monitor during a briefing with reporters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grossi was in Washington on Wednesday to update Biden administration officials on Iran\u2019s latest nuclear activities and the \u201cconstructive role\u201d the Vienna-based agency can play in efforts to salvage the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier this month, Grossi met with President Ebrahim Raisi and other senior Iranian officials in Tehran after the UN agency\u2019s recent detection of uranium particles enriched to near weapons-grade levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following his visit, Grossi said Iran agreed to restore monitoring equipment, including surveillance cameras that Tehran removed last summer. The Iranians, Grossi said, also agreed to increase inspections by 50% at the underground Fordow nuclear site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy understanding is that we have agreed on these things,” Grossi said. \u201cI know what I agreed [to] in Tehran, and we are sending our technical team to work on that. If there is a problem, I will report it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We still need to start the process of getting these additional, further monitoring and verification capacities,\u201d Grossi said. The process could take \u201cmaybe weeks or days.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a joint statement with the IAEA, Iran also said it would \u201cprovide further information\u201d on the uranium traces found at three of its old but undisclosed nuclear sites. Iran had demanded the IAEA shut its multiyear investigation into the nuclear materials as a condition of its re-entry into the JCPOA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s in [Iran\u2019s] hands,\u201d Grossi said of the long-running probe. \u201cIf they give us credible information we can work on, maybe we can move faster in trying to clear this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some experts are skeptical of Iran\u2019s latest commitments, which were made mere days before the IAEA\u2019s 35-member Board of Governors held its quarterly meeting. The United States and the JCPOA\u2019s European signatories \u2014 Britain, France and Germany \u2014 ultimately refrained from seeking a resolution censuring Iran for its nuclear advances and lack of cooperation with the agency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Iranians\u2019 incentive was to avert censure at the Board of Governors, which they did,\u201d said Henry Rome, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. \u201cAnd so the immediate pressure for Iran to compromise on this has evaporated for the time being, unfortunately.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The IAEA told member states last month that its inspectors had detected at Iran\u2019s Fordow site particles of uranium enriched to 83.7% purity, just shy of the 90% level that is considered weapons-grade. Iran had already been openly enriching uranium to 60% purity in breach of the landmark nuclear deal that President Joe Biden came into office hoping to restore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On-and-off talks to revive the deal collapsed by late summer after the Iranians put forward demands that US officials said fell outside the scope of the original nuclear deal. Iran\u2019s violent crackdown on protesters and continued supply to Russia of armed drones for use in Ukraine has further sunk prospects for renewing the JCPOA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rome said the recent China-brokered deal to re-establish relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia could further dim prospects of a resurrected JCPOA because it demonstrates to Tehran that it doesn\u2019t need a nuclear agreement to reap regional benefits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt helps to puncture the isolation that the West had been trying to impose on Iran for the nuclear issue, Russia and domestic repression,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
al-monitor.com<\/p>\n