UN nuclear chief presses Iran to strike deal on inspections soon

The UN nuclear watchdog’s talks with Iran on how to resume inspections at sites including those Israel and the United States bombed cannot go on for months on end, its chief tells Reuters, pushing for a deal as early as this week.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has had no information from Iran on the status or whereabouts of its stock of highly enriched uranium since Israel launched the first attacks on its enrichment sites on June 13, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi confirmed in an interview.

Tehran has now passed a law suspending cooperation with the IAEA and stipulating that any future inspections will need a green light from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. Tehran and the IAEA are now in talks on how inspections can go ahead.

“It’s not something that can go on for months on end,” Grossi says in an interview at IAEA headquarters in Vienna.

“I certainly hope that we can conclude this process soon. We are trying to have another meeting, perhaps within a few days now, here in Vienna, to conclude this and to start the inspections,” he says. “It would be really good if we could have this agreed before next week.”

Technically, inspections in Iran have resumed since IAEA inspectors recently carried out a mission at Bushehr, Iran’s only operating nuclear power plant, but it is of so little concern from a proliferation perspective that it does not generally feature in quarterly IAEA reports on Iran.