International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi arrived in Tehran on Saturday for talks to reinstate the nuclear watchdog’s ability to monitor the Iranian nuclear program, as efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal hang in the balance.
Grossi’s quick trip comes days after Iran has denied the IAEA access to its remote surveillance equipment, as well as an IAEA report that Iran continues to almost totally stonewall the agency’s inquiry, which began in 2018, into nuclear materials found at undeclared sites.
It also comes a day before an IAEA Board of Governors meeting, at which Western states are considering condemning Iran in response to the report.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Friday that the IAEA report indicates a need for the world to immediately act against Iran, and that “Israel will do everything to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons.”
“Israel views with utmost gravity the picture of the situation reflected in the report, which proves that Iran is continuing to lie to the world and advance a program to develop nuclear weapons, while denying its international commitments,” he stated.
Bennett called for “an appropriate and rapid international reaction to the severe actions of Iran.”
“The IAEA report warns that the time to act is now. Therefore, the naive expectation that Iran will be prepared to change its path via negotiations has been proven to be baseless,” he added. “Only a vigorous stand by the international community, backed up by decisions and actions, will be able to lead to a change by the regime in Tehran, which has lost all restraint.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh tweeted, “Outlaw Israeli regime – sitting on illicit nukes & refusing to join NPT - again threatens NPT member Iran; a nation with the world’s most inspected nuclear program.
“The West’s darling is a habitual extorter. But the world has woken up to its destabilizing nature. Iran reserves the right to respond,” he stated.
Foreign Ministry Deputy Director-General for Strategic Affairs Joshua Zarka responded, saying Iran has “a regime that for years lies and deceits as a strategy, with an illegal military nuclear program that was exposed to the entire world when you ‘lost’ your archives. You are a fundamentalist, jihadi dictatorship that exports violence and terror and abuses its own people.”
The US and the E3 – the European parties to the Iran deal: German, France and the UK – discussed on Friday in Paris whether to push for a IAEA resolution condemning Iran, which had earlier threatened to leave negotiations to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the 2015 agreement is known, if they do so.
Grossi has been negotiating with Iran in recent days to allow the IAEA access to its monitoring equipment in exchange for the E3 and the US shelving its resolution. The current understandings would only allow the IAEA to reset its equipment and not actually access their data on Iran's nuclear program, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The US left the Iran deal, which restricted the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program until 2030 in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, in 2018, opting for a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign, instead. US President Joe Biden has promised to return to the deal. In the interim, Iran has continually blocked IAEA access to undeclared nuclear sites, increased its uranium enrichment up to 60% and developed uranium metal.
Iran and the US indirectly negotiated a return to compliance with the JCPOA in April through June, at which point Iran refused to continue talks until after its presidential election, and then until after its new government, led by President Ebrahim Raisi, was sworn in.
Though the new Iranian cabinet is in place, Iran has not made clear when, if at all, it would return to the talks, with Raisi assailing “Western pressure” last week.
Last week’s IAEA report states that a year after its previous report rapping Iran for its obstructionism, “Iran has still not provided the necessary explanations for the presence of the nuclear material particles at any of the three locations... where the Agency has conducted complementary accesses.”
The report further says, “The lack of progress in clarifying the Agency’s questions concerning the correctness and completeness of Iran’s safeguards declarations seriously affects the ability of the Agency to provide assurance of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.”
The nonproliferation think tank Institute for Science and International Security released an analysis of the IAEA report which concluded that the return to the JCPOA could only take place “under a very dark cloud,” which would send a signal that the deal’s temporary limits, which are much less effective in light of Iran’s advances, are more important to the US and E3 than preventing the erosion of the IAEA’s authority.
“World leaders, in essence, would choose convenience rather than doing the difficult but critical work to determine if Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful,” the report states.
Reuters contributed to this report.