Iran still ‘examining’ whether to extend IAEA monitoring deal

Iran is “examining” whether to extend an agreement to allow the UN to monitor some of its nuclear activities, government spokesman Ali Rabii says.

Questions around IAEA cameras and other surveillance tools are part of broader talks underway in Vienna to try to salvage Iran’s tattered 2015 nuclear deal with major powers.

Iran restricted access to some of its nuclear facilities to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, in February under a law passed late last year. Since then, the Islamic Republic has refused to provide real-time footage from IAEA cameras and data from other surveillance devices that the UN agency has installed in these locations. The IAEA and Tehran have nevertheless negotiated a compromise that guarantees a certain degree of monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program.

“We are examining the need [to renew it] and any other possibility,” Rabii says, without elaborating, at a press conference in Tehran.