Tag Archives: IAEA

Iran Unrest, Middle East

Uranium enrichment: Iran slams UN watchdog chief.

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Iran on Saturday slammed the United Nations nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi after the agency in a report raised concerns over substantial covert changes to equipment at its Fordo uranium enrichment plant without prior notice, state media reported.

The criticism of Grossi comes after the International Atomic Energy Agency director-general said he plans to visit Tehran in February for talks on getting it to increase cooperation over its activities, amid stalled negotiations to revive a landmark deal over Iran’s nuclear program.

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The IAEA said in a confidential report seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday that Iran had substantially modified an interconnection between two centrifuge clusters enriching uranium to up to 60% at Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP), without giving prior notice.

Iran said later an inspector had “inadvertently” reported the changes, and that Grossi had issued the report despite the matter being resolved – a response that the United States and its allies criticized as “inadequate.”

“We gave a letter to the agency that an inspector… made a mistake and gave an incorrect report,” Mohamad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

“But yet again the director-general of the agency released this issue to the media,” he said, labelling it “unprofessional and unacceptable” behavior. “We hope that this practice will not be continued… because this is not acceptable for his reputation and the agency.”

The IAEA had said that during an unannounced Fordo inspection on Jan. 21 it found “two IR-6 centrifuge cascades… were interconnected in a way that was substantially different from the mode of operation declared by Iran to the agency.”

Since late last year, the two cascades had been used to produce uranium enriched to up to 60%, the report to member states added.

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In the report, Grossi expressed concern that Iran had “implemented a substantial change in the design information of FFEP in relation to the production of high enriched uranium without informing the agency in advance.”

In a statement on Friday, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany said Iran’s response to the report was “inadequate.”

“Iranian claims that this action was carried out in error are inadequate,” they said. “We judge Iran’s actions based on the impartial and objective reports of the IAEA, not Iran’s purported intent.”

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Grossi told the European Parliament on Jan. 24 that he plans to visit Tehran this month “for a much-needed political dialogue, or reestablishment thereof, with Iran.” The IAEA chief noted the “big, big impasse” on the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The deal with world powers collapsed after the U.S. withdrew from it in 2018 under former president Donald Trump.

Negotiations that started in April 2021 to revive the agreement have since stalled.

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energy

IAEA: World, in it’s first global energy crisis.

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Tightening markets for liquefied natural gas (LNG) worldwide and major oil producers cutting supply have put the world in the middle of “the first truly global energy crisis,” the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday.

Rising imports of LNG to Europe amid the Ukraine crisis and a potential rebound in Chinese appetite for the fuel will tighten the market as only 20 billion cubic meters (bcm) of new LNG capacity will come to market next year, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said during the Singapore International Energy Week.

At the same time the recent decision by the OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC+, to cut 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of output is a “risky” decision as the IEA sees global oil demand growth of close to 2 million bpd this year, Birol said.

“(It is) especially risky as several economies around the world are on the brink of a recession, if that we are talking about the global recession … I found this decision really unfortunate,” he said.

Soaring global prices across a number of energy sources, including oil, natural gas and coal, are hammering consumers at the same time they are already dealing with rising food and services inflation. The high prices and possibility of rationing are potentially hazardous to European consumers as they prepare to enter the Northern Hemisphere winter.

Europe may make it through this winter, though somewhat battered, if the weather remains mild, Birol said.

“Unless we will have an extremely cold and long winter, unless there will be any surprises in terms of what we have seen, for example NordStream pipeline explosion, Europe should go through this winter with some economic and social bruises,” he added.

For oil, consumption is expected to grow by 1.7 million bpd in 2023 so the world will still need Russian oil to meet demand, Birol said.

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G-7 nations have proposed a mechanism that would allow emerging nations to buy Russian oil but at lower prices to cap Moscow’s revenues in the wake of the Ukraine war.

Birol said the scheme still has many details to iron out and will require the buy-in of major oil importing nations.

A U.S. Treasury official told Reuters last week that it is not unreasonable to believe that up to 80% to 90% of Russian oil will continue to flow outside the price cap mechanism if Moscow seeks to flout it.

“I think this is good because the world still needs Russian oil to flow into the market for now. An 80%-90% is good and encouraging level in order to meet the demand,” Birol said.

While there is still a huge volume of strategic oil reserves that can be tapped during a supply disruption, another release is not currently on the agenda, he added.

Renewables growth
The energy crisis could be a turning point for accelerating clean sources and for forming a sustainable and secured energy system, Birol said.

“Energy security is the number one driver (of the energy transition),” said Birol, as countries see energy technologies and renewables as a solution.

The IEA has revised up the forecast of renewable power capacity growth in 2022 to a 20% year-on-year increase from 8% previously, with close to 400 gigawatts of renewable capacity being added this year.

Many countries in Europe and elsewhere are accelerating the installation of renewable capacity by cutting the permitting and licensing processes to replace the Russian gas, Birol said.

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Europe

Zaporizhzhia nuke plant offline after Russian shelling: Ukraine.

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The last line connecting the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to Ukraine’s electricity grid was disconnected on Monday after a fire broke out due to Russian shelling, the facility’s operator said.

Russian forces have kept up “intensive shelling” of the area around Zaporizhzhia in recent days, Energoatom said in a statement.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a U.N. watchdog, said last Saturday that the plant had lost its last main line to the grid, but was still sending power to the grid through a reserve line.

Officials at the IAEA, which still has two experts at the plant, and Energoatom weren’t immediately available to explain the consequences of the line being cut.

The developments came a day before U.N. inspectors were due to report on their efforts to avert a potential disaster at the Ukrainian site that has been engulfed by Russia’s war.

The Russian military had earlier Monday accused Ukrainian forces of staging “provocations” at the plant, which lies within a Russian-installed administrative area.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that Kyiv’s forces on Sunday targeted the territory of the plant with a drone, which it said Russian troops were able to shoot down.

The ministry said Ukrainian troops also shelled the adjacent city of Enerhodar twice overnight.

The two sides have traded accusations about endangering the plant, which the Kremlin’s forces have held since early March. The plant’s Ukrainian staff continue to operate it.

In a perilous mission, experts with the IAEA traveled through the war zone to reach the plant last week.

Four of six U.N. nuclear agency inspectors have completed their work and left the site, Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear power plant operator, said Monday. Two of the experts are expected to stay at the plant on a permanent basis, Energoatom said.

Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, applauded the IAEA’s decision to leave some experts at the plant.

“There are Russian troops now who don’t understand what’s happening, don’t assess the risks correctly,” Podolyak said.

“There is a number of our workers there, who need some kind of protection, people from the international community standing by their side and telling (Russian troops): ‘Don’t touch these people, let them work,’” he added.

The U.N. inspectors are scheduled to brief the Security Council on Tuesday about what they found out on their visit. The plant is largely crippled, amid a grinding war that has clobbered energy markets.

Meanwhile, a senior Kremlin official blamed Western sanctions on Russia over its war in Ukraine for stoppages in Moscow’s supply of natural gas to Europe, claimed Monday.

In some of the bluntest comments yet on the standoff between Moscow and Western Europe over energy supplies, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said problems with pumping the gas occurred “because of the sanctions.”

“Other reasons that would cause problems with the pumping don’t exist,” Peskov claimed.

The sanctions on Moscow and Russian companies have created problems with equipment maintenance, he said, though that claim has been refuted by Western governments and engineers.

Russian energy company Gazprom announced Friday that a suspension of gas supplies heading westwards through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would be extended indefinitely because oil leaks in turbines need fixing.

That move brought a surge in European natural gas prices and walloped global stock markets.

High energy prices and possible shortages this winter in Western Europe have set alarm bells ringing among governments, notably those in the European Union.

Peskov laid the blame for the disruption firmly at the door of the sanctions, which he claimed have prevented machinery from working properly, even though experts say that isn’t true.

German officials have rejected those explanations, saying they are merely a political power play. Germany’s Siemens Energy, which manufactured turbines the Nord Stream 1 pipeline uses, said turbine leaks can be fixed while gas continues to flow through the pipeline.

Elsewhere, the fighting raged on for a seventh month, with Ukraine’s presidential office saying Monday at least four civilians were killed and seven others were wounded by new Russian shelling across several regions of Ukraine.

Most of the casualties were in the eastern Donetsk region, where three people were killed and four were wounded. A large chunk of Donetsk is held by Russian-allied separatists.

Meanwhile, a counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces “is making verifiable progress in the south and the east” of the country, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said.

“The pace of the counteroffensive will likely change dramatically from day to day as Ukrainian forces work to starve the Russians of necessary supplies, disrupt their command and control, and weaken their morale even as counteroffensive ground assaults continue,” the institute said late Sunday.

In the eastern city of Sloviansk, personnel at the Ukrainian Red Cross Society swept up debris Monday from a second rocket attack on its premises in a week.

Nobody was hurt in either attack, said Taras Logginov, head of the agency’s rapid response unit. He blamed Russia forces and accused them of war crimes for the attacks.

In a row of apartment buildings across the road, the few residents who haven’t evacuated sawed sheets of plywood to board up their shattered windows.

Henadii Sydorenko sat on the porch of his apartment building for a break. He said he’s not sure whether to stay or leave, torn between his responsibility of taking care of three apartments whose owners have already evacuated and the increasing fear because of the now frequent shelling of Sloviansk.

“It’s frightening,” the 57-year-old said of the shelling. “I’m losing my mind, little by little.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv’s forces had liberated three settlements – two in the south and one in the east, in the Donetsk region. He didn’t provide names of the settlements in his comments on Sunday night.

Amid increased Ukrainian strikes on the occupied Kherson region, Russian-installed authorities there said that for security reasons they were putting on hold their plans for a local referendum on whether the region should formally become part of Russia.

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Europe

IAEA team arrives at Zaporizhzhia nuke plant amid radiation fears.

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An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant in southern Ukraine arrived in the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday, from where they will travel to the Russian-occupied power station.

The IAEA mission, headed by the organization’s chief Rafael Grossi, intends to inspect the Zaporizhzhia plant after its territory was repeatedly shelled over the last month, with Ukraine and Russia trading blame over the attacks.

They will inspect the nuclear power plant for damage after shelling nearby sparked fears of a radiation disaster.

Russian forces captured the plant soon after they launched their Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and the site is located close to the front lines. Russia and Ukraine have traded accusations of firing shells that have endangered the plant.

A Reuters witness said the IAEA team set off from Kyiv in a convoy of vehicles. The mission is being led by the IAEA chief Rafael Grossi and comes after extensive negotiations.

“We are now finally moving after six months of strenuous efforts,” Grossi told reporters before the convoy set off, adding that the mission planned to spend “a few days” at the site.

“We have a very important task there to perform – to assess the real situations there, to help stabilize the situation as much as we can.”

It was not clear when the IAEA team would reach Europe’s biggest nuclear plant and when it would conduct its inspection. Both sides in the war have in recent days reported regular shelling in the vicinity.

“We are going to a war zone, we are going to occupied territory and this requires explicit guarantees, not only from the Russian federation but also from Ukraine. We have been able to secure that,” Grossi said.

He said the IAEA hoped to set up a permanent mission at the plant, which is being run by Ukrainian technicians. Grossi said one of the priorities of the mission would be speaking to them.

“That’s one of the most important things I want to do and I will do it,” he said.

The United States has urged a complete shutdown of the plant and called for a demilitarized zone around it.

The Interfax news agency quoted a Russian-appointed Zaporizhzhia government official as saying on Wednesday that two of the plant’s six reactors were running.

Yevgeny Balitsky, the head of the Russian-installed administration, told Interfax that the IAEA inspectors “must see the work of the station in one day.”

Ukraine on Tuesday accused Russia of shelling a corridor that IAEA officials would need to use to reach the plant in an effort to get them to travel via Russian-annexed Crimea instead. There was no immediate response from Russia.

Ukraine’s armed forces general staff said Russia was attacking with tanks, rockets and artillery along a contact line in the Zaporizhzhia region – part of which, including the city of Zaporizhzhia, remains under Ukraine’s control.

“The enemy is regrouping units of the 3rd Army Corps … with the aim of resuming the offensive in the (Zaporizhzhia) direction,” it said.

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Iran to remove 27 surv cameras at nuclear sites: IAEA

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Iran has started to remove 27 surveillance cameras from nuclear sites in the country, according to the the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, who warned that the move could be a near-fatal blow to chances of reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), made the comments at a suddenly called news conference in Vienna on Thursday, standing next to an example of the cameras installed across Iran.

Grossi said the move poses a “serious challenge” to its efforts, warning that in three to four weeks, it would be unable to maintain a “continuity of knowledge” about Iran’s programme.

“This would be a fatal blow” to negotiations over Iran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers, Grossi said. “When we lose this, then it’s anybody’s guess,” he added.

There was no immediate comment from Iran on Grossi’s remarks

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Grossi said that would leave “40 something” cameras still in Iran. The sites that would see cameras removed include its underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, as well as its facility in Isfahan, Grossi said.


“We are in a very tense situation with the negotiations over the [nuclear deal] at a low ebb,” Grossi added. “Now we are adding this to the picture; as you can see it’s not a very nice one.”

On Wednesday, Iran said it shut off two devices the IAEA uses to monitor enrichment at Natanz, in anticipation of the watchdog’s adoption of the Western-drafted censure motion.

Grossi acknowledged that, saying that among the devices being removed was a crucial metre that tracks how high Iran is enriching uranium at Natanz.

Iranian officials had warned of retaliation if the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors passed a resolution drafted by the United States, France, Britain and Germany criticising Tehran for its continued failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites.

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The resolution, the first to criticise Iran since June 2020, was passed by a large majority late on Thursday. It was approved by 30 of the 35 members of the IAEA board of governors, with only Russia and China voting against it. Tehran condemned the censure motion as “unconstructive”.


Intensifying developments
Earlier on Thursday, the IAEA said Grossi told members that Iran informed the agency that it planned to install two new cascades of the IR-6 at Natanz. A cascade is a series of centrifuges hooked together to rapidly spin uranium gas to enrich it.


An IR-6 centrifuge spins uranium 10 times as fast as the first-generation centrifuges that Iran was once limited to under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

As of February, Iran had already been spinning a cascade of IR-6s at its underground facility at Fordo, according to the IAEA.

At Natanz, located some 200km (125 miles) south of the capital, Tehran, Iran earlier said it planned to install one cascade of IR-6s.

The IAEA said it “verified” the ongoing installation of that cascade on Monday, while the newly promised two new cascades had yet to begin.

Iran and world powers agreed in 2015 to the nuclear deal, which saw Tehran drastically limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

In 2018, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the accord, raising tensions across the wider Middle East and sparking a series of attacks and incidents.


Talks in Vienna over Iran’s tattered nuclear deal have been stalled since April. Since the deal’s collapse, Iran runs advanced centrifuges and has a rapidly growing stockpile of enriched uranium.

Nonproliferation experts warn Iran has enriched enough up to 60 percent purity — a short technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent — to make one nuclear weapon should it decide to do so.

Iran insists its programme is for peaceful purposes, though UN experts and Western intelligence agencies say Iran had an organised military nuclear programme through 2003.

Building a nuclear bomb would still take Iran more time if it pursued a weapon, analysts say, though they warn Tehran’s advances make the programme more dangerous.

Israel has threatened in the past that it would carry out a preemptive strike to stop Iran — and is already suspected by Tehran in a series of killings targeting Iranian officials.

Iran has been holding footage from IAEA surveillance cameras since February 2021 as a pressure tactic to restore the atomic accord

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Europe

Ukraine rotates workers at Chernobyl after Russian seizure: IAEA

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Ukraine has managed to rotate staff working at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant for the first time since Russia seized it last month as it invaded its neighbor, the United Nations nuclear agency said.

Ukraine told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that around half of the staff were “finally” able to return to their homes on Sunday after working at the Russian-controlled site for nearly four weeks, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said.

Those who left were replaced by other Ukrainian staff, Grossi said in a statement late Sunday.

“It is a positive – albeit long overdue – development that some staff at the Chernobyl NPP have now rotated and returned to their families,” Grossi said. “They deserve our full respect and admiration for having worked in these extremely difficult circumstances. They were there for far too long. I sincerely hope that remaining staff from this shift can also rotate soon,” he added.

On Feb. 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Moscow’s troops seized the Chernobyl compound, the site of the 1986 core meltdown that sparked the worst nuclear reactor catastrophe in history.

Around 100 technicians have been working under armed guard to maintain the site since then.

Grossi, who had expressed deep concern about the well-being of the Ukrainian staff at the site, “welcomed the news about the partial rotation of personnel,” the IAEA said.

“Before today’s rotation, the same work shift had been on-site since the day before the Russian forces entered the area,” it continued.

It is unclear why Russian soldiers seized Chernobyl, where the destroyed reactor is kept under close supervision within a concrete and lead sarcophagus, and the three other reactors are being decommissioned.

In 2017, the site was one of several Ukrainian targets hit by a massive cyberattack thought to have originated in Russia, which briefly took its radiation monitoring system offline.

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Iran to host UN Chief ahead sanctions deadline.

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The former president withdrew from the nuclear accord in 2018, while Iran started the next year to suspend its compliance with most key nuclear commitments in response.

UN nuclear watchdog head Rafael Grossi was to open talks Saturday in Iran on the eve of Tehran’s deadline for US sanctions to be lifted, as President Joe Biden called for “careful diplomacy”.

The deadline, set by Iranian lawmakers, carries the threat of a suspension of some nuclear inspections, stoking international concern about a possible expulsion of UN inspectors.

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But Iran has stressed it will not cease working with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or expel its inspectors.

Iran and the IAEA have yet to release details on the visit by the UN body’s chief Grossi that runs into Sunday.

He will “meet with senior Iranian officials to find a mutually agreeable solution, compatible with Iranian law, so that the @iaeaorg can continue essential verification activities in Iran”, Grossi wrote Friday on Twitter.

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“Looking forward to success – this is in everybody’s interest,” he added.

Iran has notified the IAEA that it will suspend “voluntary transparency measures”, notably inspection visits to non-nuclear sites, including military sites suspected of nuclear-related activity, if the United States has not lifted the sweeping sanctions former president Donald Trump reimposed in 2018.

The new measures are to go into effect on Tuesday.

Iran’s atomic body spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said last week that talks with Grossi will focus on how to cease “voluntary actions beyond safeguard (measures) and how to continue cooperation”.

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‘Diplomatic back-and-forth’

The visit comes in the wake of Biden’s call on Friday for European powers to work together to curb Iran’s “destabilising” activities, a day after committing to rejoin talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Biden told the Munich Security Conference that the United States would work closely with allies in dealing with Iran after his predecessor Trump took an aggressive unilateral approach.

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“The threat of nuclear proliferation also continues to require careful diplomacy and cooperation among us,” Biden told fellow leaders via teleconference.

“That’s why we have said we’re prepared to reengage in negotiations with the P5+1 on Iran’s nuclear program,” he said, referring to the five UN Security Council permanent members and Germany.

Tehran has repeatedly said it is ready to return to its nuclear commitments on condition that Washington does so first by lifting the sanctions reimposed by Trump that have dealt a heavy blow to Iran’s economy.

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Following an offer for talks by the Biden administration, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted Friday that Iran would “immediately reverse” its retaliatory measures if the US lifts “all sanctions imposed, re-imposed or re-labelled by Trump”.

The former president withdrew from the nuclear accord in 2018, while Iran started the next year to suspend its compliance with most key nuclear commitments in response.

In an opening gesture, the Biden administration has dropped a push for more sanctions crafted by Trump, and removed restrictions on Iranian diplomats accredited to the United Nations in New York.

Iran’s government spokesman Ali Rabiei on Saturday stressed that Tehran’s latest nuclear move will not prevent it from responding to any US show of goodwill, and expressed optimism regarding the ongoing diplomatic process.

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It is “neither against our (deal) commitments nor an obstacle for proportionate and appropriate response to any US action to prove (its) goodwill,” he wrote in an op-ed on Iran daily.

“We can confidently predict that diplomatic initiatives will work well (to achieve) the desired outcome, despite diplomatic back-and-forths, which are the natural prelude to the return of all sides to commitments including the lifting of all sanctions in the near future,” he added.

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Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile over set limit – IAEA, United Nations

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IAEA says Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium stands at more than 10 times the limit set in 2015 nuclear deal.

Iran continues to increase its stockpile of enriched uranium in violation of limitations set in the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, but has begun providing access to sites where the country was suspected of having stored or used undeclared nuclear material, the United Nations’ atomic watchdog agency said on Friday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in a confidential document distributed to member countries that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium now stands at more than 10 times the limit set in the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

As of August 25, Iran had stockpiled 2,105.4kg (4,641.6 pounds) of low-enriched uranium, up from 1,571.6kg (3,464.8 pounds) reported on May 20.

Iran signed the nuclear deal in 2015 with the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, China and Russia.

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Known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), it allows Iran only to keep a stockpile of 202.8kg (447 pounds).

Iranian technicians work at a new facility producing uranium fuel for a planned heavy-water nuclear reactor, just outside the city of Isfahan 410km south of the capital, Tehran [File: Vahid Salemi/AP]

The IAEA also reported that Iran has been continuing to enrich uranium to a purity of up to 4.5 percent, higher than the 3.67 percent allowed under the JCPOA. It said Iran’s stockpile of heavy water had decreased.

The deal promised Iran economic incentives in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.

But in 2018, President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the deal, saying it needed to be renegotiated.

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Since then, Iran has slowly scaled back against the restrictions in an attempt to pressure the remaining nations to increase incentives to offset new, economy-crippling US sanctions.

Those countries maintain that even though Iran has been violating many of the pact’s restrictions, it is important to keep the deal alive because the country has continued providing the IAEA with critical access to inspect its nuclear facilities.

The agency had been at a months-long impasse over two locations thought to be from the early 2000s, however, which Iran had argued inspectors had no right to visit because they dated to before the deal.

Last week, Iran announced it would allow the IAEA access to the two sites, following a visit to Tehran by the organisation’s Director General Rafael Grossi.

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The IAEA said Iran had granted its inspectors access to one of the two sites.

“Iran provided agency inspectors access to the location to take environmental samples,” a separate IAEA report seen by the AFP news agency said on Friday.

“The samples will be analysed by laboratories that are part of the agency’s network,” it added.

The report said an inspection at the second site will take place “later in September 2020 on a date already agreed with Iran”.

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Just in: IAEA of Iran meet in Vienna amid United States pressure.

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Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia are attempting to save the 2015 accord with Iran following the US withdrawal.

The signatories to the faltering Iran nuclear deal are meeting in Vienna as the United States urges the reimposition of international sanctions on Tehran and the extension of the conventional arms embargo against it.

Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia are struggling to save the 2015 landmark accord with Iran, which has been progressively stepping up its nuclear activities since last year.

Tehran insists it is entitled to do so under the deal – which swapped sanctions relief for Iran’s agreement to scale back its nuclear programme – following the US withdrawal from the accord in 2018 and its reimposition of sanctions on Iran.

In a boost to Tuesday’s talks, the Iranian atomic energy last week agreed for inspectors of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog to visit two sites suspected of having hosted undeclared activity in the early 2000s.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi had travelled to Iran on his first trip since taking up the top post last year and after months of calling for access.

“Iran is voluntarily providing the IAEA with access to the two locations specified by the IAEA,” Grossi and the head of Iran’s nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, said in a joint statement last week.

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“Both sides recognise the independence, impartiality and professionalism of the IAEA continue to be essential in the fulfilment of its verification activities,” the statement read.

The IAEA stepped up pressure on Iran in June when its Board of Governors passed a resolution calling it to let inspectors into the sites and cooperate with the agency.

Results from any site visits are, however, expected to take three months, according to a diplomat familiar with the matter, so “it risks being a problem then with the Iranians” if anything undeclared and nuclear-related is found.

The Iranian atomic energy last week agreed to allow IAEA inspectors to visit two sites suspected of having hosted undeclared activity in the early 2000s [File: AP Photo]

US ‘isolated’
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to International Organisations in Vienna, on Monday posted on Twitter that “nuclear deal participants have a lot of topics to discuss”.

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The meeting will be chaired by EU senior official Helga-Maria Schmid with deputy foreign ministers or political directors from Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran and Russia attending.

Mark Fitzpatrick, an associate fellow of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said last week’s agreement on access kept “Iran generally in line with the rest of the world, against an isolated United States”.

The UN last week blocked the US bid to reimpose international sanctions on Iran, while Washington also failed to rally enough support to extend an arms embargo set to start to lapse from October.

But Fitzpatrick pointed out that “Iran’s nuclear activities remain of deep concern to those states that are dedicated to non-proliferation”.

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Iran reportedly recently transferred advanced centrifuges used to enrich uranium from a pilot facility into a new hall at its main Natanz nuclear fuel plant, which was hit by sabotage in July.

An IAEA assessment published in June said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was almost eight times the limit fixed in the accord.

The level of enrichment is still far below what would be needed for a nuclear weapon, but EU parties to the deal have urged Iran’s full compliance.

The IAEA, which regularly updates its members on Iran’s nuclear activities, is expected to issue a fresh report ahead of a meeting of member states to discuss the dossier later this month.

#Newsworthy…