IAEA chief urges Iran to resume stalled nuclear talks ‘now’

The International Atomic Energy Agency urges Iran to resume talks “now” to avoid a crisis that could make it “extremely more difficult” to salvage the 2015 nuclear accord.

Iran this week disconnected some cameras allowing international inspectors to monitor its nuclear activities in response to a Western resolution passed June 8 in which the UN agency denounced Tehran’s lack of cooperation.

Twenty-seven surveillance cameras “have been removed,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi says in an interview broadcast today by CNN, calling it a “very serious move.”

“Recent history tells us that it is never a good thing to start saying to international inspectors, ‘Go home…’ Things get much more problematic,” he adds.

Grossi says he has been telling his Iranian counterparts, “We have to sit down now, we have to redress the situation, we have to continue working together. The only way for Iran to get the confidence, the trust they so badly need in order to move their economy forward… is to allow the inspectors of the IAEA to be present.”

The recent Iranian action, he says, makes “the way back to an agreement extremely more difficult.”