(Vienna) The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA) Mohammad Eslami met on Monday in Vienna with the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi, after several months without contact.
Posted at 4:19 p.m.
“Dialogue has resumed with Iran on clarifying” the issue of three undeclared sites, where traces of uranium have been discovered in the past, tweeted Mr. Grossi, in a message accompanied by photos of the meeting .
The UN nuclear policeman has been deploring for months the lack of progress in this file, which had earned the Islamic Republic the vote of a critical resolution by the Board of Governors of the IAEA in June.
In a recent report, the IAEA had hardened the tone, considering “not to be able to guarantee” that the Iranian program is “exclusively peaceful”.
Remarks reiterated Monday morning by Rafael Grossi, at the opening of the annual General Conference of the body. “The Agency remains ready to work with Iran without delay to resolve these issues,” he said.
This is one of the stumbling blocks in the negotiations which started in April 2021 to relaunch the Iranian nuclear agreement concluded in Vienna in 2015 between Tehran and the international community but undermined by the decision of the United States to withdraw it. to denounce unilaterally under the presidency of Donald Trump in 2018, then by the successive renunciations of the Islamic Republic to honor its most important commitments.
The Vienna agreement offers Iran an easing of international sanctions in exchange for a drastic limitation of its nuclear activities, under the control of the IAEA.
Tehran has repeatedly called for the closure of the IAEA’s investigation into the sites in question, which Mr. Grossi refuses to do without “credible” answers from Iran.
Tehran for its part denounces the “politicization” of the Agency and its investigation, while ensuring that it has “fully” cooperated.
“I hope that my discussions will put an end as soon as possible to the false accusations concerning certain” nuclear sites, had declared Mr. Eslami before his departure for Vienna, denouncing the “pressures” exerted against his country.
Last week, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reaffirmed in his speech to the UN General Assembly in New York that his country was not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.