The head of UN’s nuclear watchdog has reiterated in an interview with NBC that his agency’s monitoring system in Iran’s nuclear facilities is no longer intact.
Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who was in Washington for a week, highlighted the fact that Iran has refused to allow his agency to replace cameras in a key facility producing uranium enrichment centrifuges.
Iran’s parliament last December passed a law reducing cooperation with the IAEA in a bid to force the new US administration to lift sanctions. Iran’s tough posture came as candidate Joe Biden in September 2020 had expressed his readiness, if elected, to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, which Donald Trump had abandoned two years earlier.
In February, Grossi reached a temporary agreement with Iran to continue taped monitoring by cameras and the arrangement has remained in place but gradually eroded.
Grossi also told NBC that he has not been able to establish the kind of direct communication with the new hardline Iranian government. He complained that after more than two months, he has not been able to speak to the new foreign minister.