Head of the UN nuclear watchdog Rafael Grossi raised on Monday fresh concerns over Iran's failure to fully cooperate with inspections, warning that this is preventing independent verification of its nuclear activities.
He called on Iran urgently to cooperate fully and effectively with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to resolve the outstanding safeguards issues.
The IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors is holding a quarterly meeting in Vienna this week. The United States, Britain, France and Germany plan to propose a resolution for the board to adopt that would declare Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations over other failings outlined in the report.
Speaking from Vienna, Grossi said: “I am convinced that the only way forward goes through a diplomatic solution, strongly backed by an IAEA verification arrangement.”
“I will continue to support and encourage the US and Iran to spare no effort and exercise wisdom and political courage to bring this to a successful conclusion,” he added.
Grossi spoke about his recent talks with Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Cairo, through the mediation of Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.
“The effect of a stabilized situation in Iran with regards to its nuclear program will be immediate and bring the Middle East one big step closer to peace and prosperity,” he stressed.
The IAEA chief said that his last quarterly report on the NPT Safeguards Agreement with Iran, contains a comprehensive and updated assessment in connection with past and present outstanding issues regarding Tehran's nuclear program.
His report is in response to the Board's resolution of November last year.
“As you know, the Agency found man-made uranium particles at each of three undeclared locations in Iran – at Varamin, Marivan and Turquzabad – at which we conducted complementary access in 2019 and 2020,” he said.
Since then, “we have been seeking explanations and clarifications from Iran for the presence of these uranium particles, including through a number of high-level meetings and consultations in which I have been personally involved,” he remarked.
Grossi then expressed regret that Iran has repeatedly either not answered, or not provided technically credible answers to, the IAEA's questions. It has also sought to sanitize the locations, which has impeded Agency verification activities, he said.
He added that the Agency's comprehensive assessment of what took place – based on a technical evaluation of all available safeguards-relevant information – has led it to conclude that these three locations, and other possible related locations, were part of an undeclared structured nuclear program carried out by Iran until the early 2000s and that some activities used undeclared nuclear material.
The IAEA concluded that Iran did not declare nuclear material and nuclear-related activities at these three undeclared locations, Grossi went on to say.
As a consequence of this, the IAEA is not in a position to determine whether the related nuclear material is still outside of safeguards.
In addition, he said, “Iran's unilateral decision to stop implementation of modified Code 3.1 has led to a significant reduction in the Agency's ability to verify whether Iran's nuclear program is entirely peaceful and is also contrary to its legal obligations set out in Article 39 of Iran's Safeguards Agreement and in the Subsidiary Arrangements.”
Grossi also noted that the rapid accumulation of highly enriched uranium is of “serious concern” and adds to the complexity of the issues he has described.
“Given the potential proliferation implications, the Agency cannot ignore the stockpiling of over 400 kg of highly enriched uranium,” he said.
Meanwhile, Grossi said that Iran's acquisition of confidential UN nuclear watchdog documents is a “bad” step that goes against the spirit of cooperation that should exist between the agency and Tehran.
The IAEA said in a confidential report on Iran to member states on May 31 that it had “conclusive evidence of highly confidential documents belonging to the Agency having been actively collected and analyzed by Iran.”
“That raises serious concerns regarding Iran's spirit of collaboration” and could undermine the IAEA's work in Iran, it warned.
Tehran said in a statement to member states last week that the accusation was “slanderous” and had been made “without presenting any substantiated proof or document.”
“Here, unfortunately, and this dates to a few years ago ... we could determine with all clarity that documents that belong to the Agency were in the hands of Iranian authorities, which is bad,” Grossi told a press conference on Monday. “We believe that an action like this is not compatible with the spirit of cooperation.”
Asked about the nature of the documents and whether they were originally Iranian ones that had been seized by Israel and supplied to the agency, he replied: “No. We received documents from member states, and also we have our own assessments on documents, on equipment, etc.”
In May 2022, Israel accused Iran of stealing classified documents from the IAEA to help it hide evidence of its nuclear program.
“Iran stole classified documents from the UN's Atomic Agency IAEA and used that information to systematically evade nuclear probes,” then Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett wrote on Twitter.
