- The IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi briefed the Board of Governors earlier this week on his support for bilateral negotiations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America to find a mutually acceptable agreement that ensures the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.
- The UN-backed atomic watchdog voted through a resolution yesterday declaring that Iran is not complying with its obligations regarding nuclear non-proliferation.
Mr Grossi said he had held constructive high-level meetings in Cairo last week, where he met with the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and the Foreign Minister of Iran Abbas Araghchi.
“The IAEA is playing an important, impartial part in addressing this difficult and delicate matter and will have an indispensable role in verifying any new agreement,” he said as he presented the IAEA’s quarterly report on the NPT Safeguards Agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran and Verification and Monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in Light of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015) to the Board.
The IAEA reports that its inspectors have been unable to determine whether Iran’s nuclear programme was “exclusively peaceful” – as per the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal from which the United States subsequently withdrew.
The report provides a comprehensive and updated assessment on past and present outstanding issues regarding Iran’s nuclear programme. It concluded that three locations, and other possible related locations, were part of an undeclared structured nuclear programme carried out by Iran until the early 2000s and that some activities used undeclared nuclear material.
In his statement, Mr Grossi called upon Iran to cooperate with the IAEA: “We will continue to support and encourage Iran, in this process, to continue our dialogue,” he said.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
