The UN atomic watchdog reached an agreement with Iran on Sunday
allowing the Agency access to surveillance cameras inside its
atomic facilities.
The deal was struck during a visit to Tehran by the head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
Rafael Mariano Grossi.
During “constructive” talks with Vice-President of the Iranian
atomic energy association, Mohammad Eslami, it was agreed that
new memory cards would be installed into cameras monitoring the
country’s nuclear programme, the IAEA said in a joint
statement.
It has also been agreed the cameras can be serviced. No further
details were given apart from that the two sides had reached an
agreement on how this was to be done.
Whilst a sign of “cooperation and mutual trust,” between the
parties, the statement said the existing cards showing Iranian
activity at its main nuclear sites will be sealed and kept in
Iran.
Formal censure
The agreement could avert the formal censure of Iran by the
IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors at a meeting in Vienna this
week, for failing to co-operate with an investigation into traces
of uranium found at undeclared nuclear sites.
The resolution risked ending the prospect of reviving
talks between Iran and the United States on reviving the 2015
Iran nuclear deal.
In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal,
known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action” (JCPOA), which sets out rules for monitoring Iran’s
nuclear programme and paves the way for the lifting of UN
sanctions.
In July 2019, Iran reportedly breached its uranium stockpile
limit and announced its intention to continue enriching
uranium, posing a more serious proliferation risk. On 15
February, Iran announced that it would stop implementing
“voluntary transparency measures” in the Iran nuclear deal, along
with other arrangements in Iran’s Safeguards Agreement.
Compliance issues
On Monday, during the
opening of the IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Geneva, Mr.
Grossi recalled that up to 23 February 2021, the agency had
verified and monitored the implementation by Iran of its
nuclear-related commitments under the JCPOA.
However, since that date, these activities have been seriously
undermined as a result of Iran’s decision to stop the
implementation of its nuclear-related commitments, including the
Additional Protocol.
“The Agency’s confidence that it could maintain continuity of
knowledge had been declining over time and had recently
significantly further declined. This confidence could continue to
decline unless the situation were immediately rectified by Iran,”
he said.
He said that, despite the advancements, he remains
“deeply concerned that nuclear material has been present
at undeclared locations in Iran and that the current locations of
this nuclear material are not known to the Agency.”
Talks ongoing
Mr. Eslami said Iran “will continue talks on the sidelines” of
the IAEA meeting in Vienna this week and added that Mr. Grossi
would visit Tehran again “in the near future” to discuss
technical issues on changing the memory cards of the surveillance
cameras.
“What matters to us is building trust and having mutual trust,”
he added. On his return to Vienna, Mr. Grossi said while the
agreement was a “stopgap” it would be implemented in a few days
because the IAEA was “getting to the point where we needed
immediate rectification”.
He added: "We managed to rectify the most urgent issue - the
imminent loss of knowledge we were confronted with until
yesterday. Now we have a solution."
The IAEA chief said there would be further meetings at higher
levels: “Nothing will be sidelined and nothing hidden,” he said,
in reference to other long-standing issues, including unexplained
nuclear particles found in some sites.
