IAEA chief says agreement struck with Iran to restore cameras, increase inspections at Fordo
‘We have put a tourniquet on the bleeding,’ IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said on return from two day trip to Iran on March 4.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said that Iran and the IAEA had jointly agreed on a number of “very concrete, very tangible” steps on his two day trip to Iran, including the re-installation of the Agency’s cameras removed by Iran last year, and increasing the pace of inspections at Iran’s underground Fordo facility by fifty per cent.
“We have agreed on a number of very concrete things,” Grossi told journalists at a press conference in Vienna today (March 4), following his return from a trip to Iran during which he met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Atomic Energy Organization of Iran counterpart, Mohammad Eslami.
“We agreed to restore monitoring and verification capacities,” Grossi said. “We agreed that there we are going to have certain accesses. We agree on many things today.”
“So of course, we will have to do that,” the UN atomic watchdog continued. “And as always, the Agency will be fully transparent in terms of its success... or lack thereof.”
Grossi’s visit came ahead of an IAEA Board of Governors meeting starting on Monday (March 6).
US Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley said Thursday (March 2) that the United States would wait for the results of Grossi’s visit to Iran before determining its next steps.
“Let’s see what the IAEA reports back and then it’ll be time enough for us to decide on appropriate next steps,” Malley, speaking at a meeting of experts convened by J Street March 2, said.
Grossi: ‘I think we are taking steps in the right direction’
“I think we are taking steps in the right direction,” Grossi said. “I don't want to sound overly optimistic or overly pessimistic. I think it's hard work ahead of us, a lot of work ahead of us, for Iran and for us.”
IAEA cameras will be operating again
“A very important point for me,…over the past few months, there was a reduction in some of the monitoring activities…related to cameras…which were not operating, so we have agreed that those will be operating again,” Grossi said.
“Now again, this is a very technical matter, and we are going to be agreeing on the modalities to reestablish this, but this is very, very important,” the Argentinian diplomat said.
Asked by a reporter, “So just to make sure that I understood you, all of these cameras that have been removed and all the other equipment you refer to, you have a pledge from Iran, all of this will be…reinstalled?”
“Yes,” Grossi responded.
IAEA will increase inspections at Fordo by 50%
Grossi, on the Fordo facility, where the IAEA last week reported that it had in January detected trace particles of uranium enriched to 84%, stressed that Iran was not producing or accumulating uranium enriched to that level, which is just shy of weapons grade. But the Agency had requested, and Iran had agreed, to increasing the intensity of inspections there, he said.
“We came to the conclusion that this particular facility required more inspection activity,” Grossi said. “We proposed that to Iran, Iran agreed to that, and now we are increasing the intensity of the inspections effort there.
Increasing the pace of inspections at Fordo is important, Grossi said, because Iran last fall reconfigured its centrifuge cascade there, “it is a very efficient cascade, it goes very fast. So we came to the conclusion, ‘Okay, you can do this, but we need to inspect more here.’ And this is what was agreed. And it’s a very important step forward. 50% more inspections.”
Restoring the IAEA cameras that Iran removed last year is “very, very important because I have been referring quite frequently to my preoccupation about the diminishing continuity of knowledge,” Grossi said. “We are losing information on certain areas which are very important. In particular, I should say in the context of the possibility of the revival of the JCPOA, since if we don't have information about important aspects related, for example, to the fabrication of centrifuges, and other things, it would be very difficult for us to give Iran and the parties the necessary assurances to re-establish the necessary baselines.”
“All of this requires a lot of time, requires painstaking efforts on the parts of my inspectors and also their Iranian counterparts’ parts and reconciling figures, looking at the information,” he said. “These have been lost.”
‘We have put a tourniquet on the bleeding’
“We have put a tourniquet on the bleeding… so now we can start…reconstructing this baseline of information,” he said. “And these are not words, this is very concrete. And this was a deficit we had which we have agreed with Iran that is going to be redressed.”
Asked about the timeline for restoring this access and equipment, Grossi said he should have an IAEA team in Iran in the next few days to arrange more technical specifics. “We will have a team there arranging for all of these, it's going to be a process, it takes some time.”
On traces of 84% enriched uranium: ‘There has not been production or accumulation’
The Agency and Iran are still discussing how the 84% particles came about, Grossi said, but he stressed that the Agency did not see evidence that Iran was actively enriching to that level.
“We don't judge intentions,” he said. “We saw an event which is of course, worthy of clarification…After taking some samples, we see a peak. Sometimes in these type of facilities, there can be oscillations or peaks, that can be accidental, or can be limited in time. But it can be otherwise.”
“So the idea of this process is to sit down to look at the way in which the cascade in this case has been operated to analyze it,” he said. “The operator knows how to explain that, our inspectors know what it means. And so this is the sense of the dialogue to determine how it happened.”
“What is important… is that there hasn't been any accumulation, production of enriched uranium at that level,” Grossi said. “This is also very important, so people are not misled. There was a detection of a certain level and then we asked for clarification, but what we have seen in our continued observation of the facility is that there has not been production or accumulation of uranium at that level.”