U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said cooperation from Iran regarding its nuclear program is “completely unsatisfactory.” Grossi made the statement Tuesday after attending a nuclear conference in Iran.
Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged Iran to adopt concrete measures to address concerns surrounding the Islamic Republic’s rapidly advancing atomic program.
Iran and IAEA are still negotiating a 2023 deal to expand inspections of the country’s nuclear program.
“We have to be moving on,” Grossi told reporters Tuesday in Vienna. “The present state is completely unsatisfactory for me. We are almost at an impasse … and this needs to be changed.”
Grossi warned in January that Iran has amassed enough highly enriched uranium for several nuclear bombs if it chooses to build them. He said the agency cannot guarantee whether Iran’s centrifuges are being used for secret enrichment.
“The level of inspection [in Iran] is not at the level we should have,” Grossi told Sky News last month.
Grossi spoke alongside Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, at Tuesday’s news conference in the city of Isfahan.
Grossi said he and Eslami attempted to agree on “tangible measures” Iran could take in compliance with a March 2023 joint statement between Iran and the IAEA.
That statement included a pledge by Iran to resolve questions about potential undeclared nuclear activity, allowing the IAEA to “implement further appropriate verification and monitoring activities.”
“The important point is that Mr. Grossi takes the necessary actions to settle the problems that are mainly political,” Eslami said.
Tensions have heightened between the IAEA and Iran since 2018 when former U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal between Tehran and a group including China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K. and the European Union. Iran has since abandoned the deal’s limits on its nuclear program.
IAEA surveillance cameras have been disrupted, while Iran has barred some of the agency’s most experienced inspectors from its nuclear facilities.
Grossi said he wants an agreement to be reached within a month.
“I certainly expect to start having some concrete results soon,” he told reporters in Vienna.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
