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Grossi, the IAEA director general, gave some details on the deal he had reached with Iranian leaders. He said the number of inspectors on the ground would remain the same but that “what changes is the type of activity” that the agency was able to carry out, without giving more details. He stressed that the follow-up would continue “satisfactorily”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who under President Hassan Rouhani helped secure the atomic deal, said the IAEA would not be able to access images from its cameras at nuclear sites. This happened in an interview on public television on Sunday even before he met Grossi.
“It’s not a deadline for the world. This is not an ultimatum, ”Zarif told English television channel Press TV. “This is an internal internal problem between parliament and government.”
“We have a democracy. We are supposed to apply the laws of the land. And parliament has passed legislation – whether we like it or not. “
Zarif’s comments marked recognition at the highest level to date of what Iran planned to do when it stopped following the so-called “additional protocol,” a confidential agreement reached between Tehran and the IAEA. as part of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal. The IAEA has additional protocols with a number of countries that it monitors.
As part of the protocol with Iran, the IAEA “collects and analyzes hundreds of thousands of images captured daily by its sophisticated surveillance cameras,” the agency said in 2017. The agency also told the period that it had placed “2000 tamper-evident seals on nuclear materials.” and equipment. “
In his interview, Zarif said authorities would be “required by law not to provide recordings from these cameras.” It was not immediately clear whether this also meant the cameras would be completely turned off, as Zarif called it a “technical decision, not a political decision”.
“The IAEA will certainly not get images from these cameras,” Zarif said.
Grossi did not respond to Zarif’s remarks on camera Sunday evening, but stressed that European and American leaders must save the situation through negotiations.
“What we have agreed is something viable. It is useful to fill this gap, ”said Grossi. “It saves this situation now, but, of course, for a stable and lasting situation, it will take political negotiation and that is not up to me.”
There are 18 nuclear facilities and nine other sites in Iran under IAEA safeguards.
In 2018, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, saying it had to be renegotiated.
Even as Iran has renounced restrictions on the deal since then to pressure other signatories – Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China – to provide new incentives To offset US sanctions, these countries insisted that it was essential to keep the deal alive so that inspectors could continue to verify Iran’s nuclear activities.
From Washington, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden remains willing to negotiate a return to the nuclear deal with Iran, an offer previously rejected by Zarif.
“He is ready to come to the table to discuss with the Iranians how we are getting strict constraints on their nuclear program,” Sullivan told “Face the Nation” on CBS. “This offer still stands, because we believe diplomacy is the best way to do it.”
Regarding US citizens detained by Iran, Sullivan added, “We have started communicating with the Iranians on this issue.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on state television on Sunday evening, responding to Sullivan that “there are no direct talks between Iran and the United States in any area. “. However, Khatibzadeh said that the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which looked after American interests in the decades following the 1979 hostage crisis, has been passing messages between countries on prisoners’ issues since Biden took over. its functions.
Grossi met with Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s civilian nuclear program, earlier on Sunday.
Iran’s parliament approved a bill in December that would suspend part of UN inspections of its nuclear facilities if European signatories do not relieve oil and banking sanctions by Tuesday.
Already, Iran has slowly moved away from all the limitations of the nuclear deal on its uranium stockpile and has started to enrich itself by 20%, a technical step away from military grade levels. He also started spinning advanced centrifuges banned by the deal, which saw Iran curtail its program in return for lifting economic sanctions.
A growing string of incidents since Trump’s withdrawal has threatened the wider Middle East. Over a year ago, an American drone strike killed a senior Iranian general, forcing Tehran to later launch ballistic missiles that injured dozens of American soldiers in Iraq.
A mysterious explosion also struck the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz, which Iran has called sabotage. In November, Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who had founded the country’s military nuclear program some 20 years earlier, was killed in an attack Tehran attributes to Israel.
Zarif referred to the attacks in his interview on state television, saying the IAEA must keep some of his information confidential for security reasons.
“Some of them may have security ramifications for Iran, whose peaceful nuclear sites have been attacked,” Zarif said. “For a country whose nuclear scientists have been murdered in terrorist operations in the past – and now recently with Mr. Fakhrizadeh – confidentiality is essential.”
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