UN atomic chief hopes to hold talks with Iran’s new president before US election

VIENNA — UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi hopes to hold talks with new Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian by November on improving Iran’s cooperation with his agency, he says.

Several long-standing issues are dogging relations between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, including Tehran’s barring of uranium-enrichment experts on the inspection team and its failure for years to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites.

“He (Pezeshkian) agreed to meet with me at an appropriate juncture,” Grossi says in a statement to a quarterly meeting of his agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors, referring to an exchange after Pezeshkian’s election in July.

“I encourage Iran to facilitate such a meeting in the not-too-distant future so that we can establish a constructive dialogue that leads swiftly to real results,” he says.

With nuclear diplomacy largely stalled between the Iranian presidential election and the US one on November 5, Grossi says he wants to make real progress soon.

Asked at a news conference if his reference to the “not-too-distant future” meant before or after the US election, Grossi says: “No, hopefully before that.”

IAEA board resolutions ordering Iran to cooperate urgently with the investigation into the uranium traces and calling on it to reverse its barring of inspectors have brought little change, and quarterly IAEA reports seen by Reuters on August 29 showed no progress.

Iran responded to the latest resolution in June by announcing an expansion of its enrichment capacity, installing more centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium, at its Natanz and Fordow sites.

“What we see is that there is some work, but nothing that indicates a rush to a fast implementation of a big increase in terms of enrichment production,” Grossi says.