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Grossi Wants to Meet with Iran’s Pezeshkian ‘at Earliest Convenience’

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi speaks to the media at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, US, March 15, 2023. (Reuters)
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi speaks to the media at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, US, March 15, 2023. (Reuters)
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Grossi Wants to Meet with Iran’s Pezeshkian ‘at Earliest Convenience’

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi speaks to the media at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, US, March 15, 2023. (Reuters)
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi speaks to the media at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, US, March 15, 2023. (Reuters)

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi announced he intends to visit Tehran through a letter he addressed to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iranian Mehr Agency reported that Grossi sent a congratulatory message to the Iranian president-elect, which stated: “I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to you on your election win as President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

“Cooperation between the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Islamic Republic of Iran has been at the focal attention of the international circles for many years. I am confident that, together, we will be able to make decisive progress on this crucial matter.”

“To that effect, I wish to express my readiness to travel to Iran to meet with you at the earliest convenience,” Iran’s Mehr news agency quoted Grossi as saying.

The meeting – should it take place - will be the first for Pezeshkian, who had pledged during his election campaign to be open to the West to resolve outstanding issues through dialogue.

Last week, American and Israeli officials told the Axios news site that Washington sent a secret warning to Tehran last month regarding its fears of Iranian research and development activities that might be used to produce nuclear weapons.

In May, Grossi expressed his dissatisfaction with the course of the talks he held over two days in Iran in an effort to resolve outstanding matters.

Since the death of the former Iranian president, Ibrahim Raisi, the IAEA chief refrained from raising the Iranian nuclear file, while European sources said that Tehran had asked to “freeze discussions” until the internal situation was arranged and a new president was elected.

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China, Russia May Build Nuclear Plant on Moon to Power Lunar Station, Official Says

The moon is seen over the city of Beijing, China, February 20, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo
The moon is seen over the city of Beijing, China, February 20, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo
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China, Russia May Build Nuclear Plant on Moon to Power Lunar Station, Official Says

The moon is seen over the city of Beijing, China, February 20, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo
The moon is seen over the city of Beijing, China, February 20, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo

China is considering building a nuclear plant on the moon to power the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) it is planning with Russia, a presentation by a senior official showed on Wednesday.

China aims to become a major space power and land astronauts on the moon by 2030, and its planned Chang’e-8 mission for 2028 would lay the groundwork for constructing a permanent, manned lunar base.

In a presentation in Shanghai, the 2028 mission's Chief Engineer Pei Zhaoyu showed that the lunar base’s energy supply could also depend on large-scale solar arrays, and pipelines and cables for heating and electricity built on the moon's surface.

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said last year it planned to build a nuclear reactor on the moon’s surface with the China National Space Administration (CNSA) by 2035 to power the ILRS, Reuters reported.

The inclusion of the nuclear power unit in a Chinese space official’s presentation at a conference for officials from the 17 countries and international organizations that make up the ILRS suggests Beijing supports the idea, although it has never formally announced it.

"An important question for the ILRS is power supply, and in this Russia has a natural advantage, when it comes to nuclear power plants, especially sending them into space, it leads the world, it is ahead of the United States," Wu Weiren, chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program, told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.

After little progress on talks over a space-based reactor in the past, "I hope this time both countries can send a nuclear reactor to the moon," Wu said.

China's timeline to build an outpost on the moon's south pole coincides with NASA's more ambitious and advanced Artemis programme, which aims to put US astronauts back on the lunar surface in December 2025.

Wu said last year that a "basic model" of the ILRS, with the Moon's south pole as its core, would be built by 2035.

In the future, China will create the "555 Project," inviting 50 countries, 500 international scientific research institutions, and 5,000 overseas researchers to join the ILRS.

Researchers from Roscosmos also presented at the conference in Shanghai, sharing details about plans to look for mineral and water resources, including possibly using lunar material as fuel.

The ILRS preceded Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 but incentives for cooperation between Roscosmos and CNSA have increased since the outbreak of the war, according to Chinese analysts.

With China's rapid technological advances and lunar achievements, and as Western sanctions prevent Roscosmos from many imports of space technology and equipment, China can now "alleviate the pressure" on Russia and help it "achieve new breakthroughs in satellite launches, lunar exploration, and space stations," Liu Ying, a researcher at the Chinese foreign ministry's diplomatic academy, wrote in a journal article last year.