Iran pledges to cooperate with UN nuclear watchdog over investigation into uranium
- Iran said it will finally assist an investigation into uranium particles found at undeclared sites and even reinstall removed monitoring equipment, the IAEA said
- ‘Iran is supposed to provide access to information, locations and people,’ IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told a news conference in Vienna after the meeting in Tehran
Iran has given sweeping assurances to the UN nuclear watchdog that it will finally assist a long-stalled investigation into uranium particles found at undeclared sites and even reinstall removed monitoring equipment, the watchdog said on Saturday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran issued a joint statement on IAEA chief Rafael Grossi’s return from a trip to Tehran, whee he held talks with Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, just two days before a quarterly meeting of the agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors.
The statement went into little detail but the possibility of a marked improvement in relations between the two is likely to stave off a Western push for another resolution ordering Iran to cooperate, diplomats said. Iran has, however, made similar promises before that have yielded little or nothing.
“Iran expressed its readiness to … provide further information and access to address the outstanding safeguards issues,” the joint statement said. A confidential IAEA report to member states seen by Reuters said Grossi “looks forward to … prompt and full implementation of the Joint Statement”.
Iran is supposed to provide access to information, locations and people, Grossi told a news conference at Vienna airport soon after landing, suggesting a vast improvement after years of Iranian stonewalling.
Iran would also allow the reinstallation of extra monitoring equipment that had been put in place under the 2015 nuclear deal, but then removed last year as the deal unravelled in the wake of the US withdrawal from the deal in 2018 under former US president Donald Trump.
