KEY POINTS
- IAEA chief says Iran’s new cooperation framework covers all nuclear facilities and installations.
- Iran suspended cooperation with the UN watchdog after the June Iran-Israel war and attacks on its nuclear sites.
- Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi says IAEA inspectors currently have no access.
- Iran warns it will end cooperation if hostile actions, including reimposed UN sanctions, are taken against it.
VIENNA, Austria: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi on Wednesday said that Iran’s new cooperation framework with the UN nuclear watchdog includes “all facilities and installations in Iran”.
Iran agreed a deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tuesday on the new procedural framework for Iran-IAEA interaction to implement safeguards commitments, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeel Baghaei said. After the Iran-Israel war in June, Tehran had suspended cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog.
The 12-day war saw Israeli and US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, which the IAEA has not been able to access since.
Grossi said the agreed document “provides for a clear understanding of the procedures for inspections”.
It “includes all facilities and installations in Iran, and it also contemplates the required reporting on all the attacked facilities, including the nuclear material present at those,” Grossi told the Vienna-based agency’s Board of Governors meeting, AFP reported.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in an interview aired on Wednesday, cited by AFP, said that, as per the agreement, currently no access is given to the IAEA inspectors.
“Based on this agreement, currently no access is given to the IAEA inspectors,” Araghchi told state television, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“This agreement itself does not create any access. Based on the reports that Iran will provide later, the type of access should be negotiated in due course,” he added.
Tehran’s suspension of cooperation saw the agency’s inspectors leave Iran, before a team briefly returned last month to oversee the replacement of fuel at the Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Access to nuclear sites now requires the approval of the Supreme National Security Council, and the most recent inspection was not granted access to other key sites, including Fordo and Natanz, which were hit in the June strikes.
“Iran and the agency will now resume cooperation in a respectful and comprehensive way,” Grossi said, adding the “practical steps… need to be implemented now”.
“There may be difficulties and issues to be resolved for sure, but we now know what we have to do,” he added.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on Tuesday that Iran would end cooperation with the agency “in the event of any hostile action against Iran”.
“I emphasise that in the event of any hostile action against Iran, including the reinstatement of lifted UN Security Council resolutions, Iran will consider these practical steps ended,” he said.
In August, Britain, France and Germany initiated steps to reimpose UN sanctions after weeks of warnings, citing Iran’s non-compliance with its commitments under a 2015 nuclear agreement.
Iran has condemned the move as “illegal” and warned that it could lead to the exclusion of the European powers from any future negotiations.
Iran maintains that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.
