UN nuclear chief to visit Iran next week for nuclear conference, talks with officials

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi is scheduled to visit Iran to take part in a nuclear conference on May 6-8 and meet Iranian officials, Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency says.

“Grossi will meet Iranian officials in Tehran before participating in the International Conference of Nuclear Sciences and Technologies held in Isfahan,” the agency reports.

The IAEA chief said in February that he was planning a visit to Tehran to tackle a “drifting apart” in relations between the agency and the Islamic Republic.

Grossi said the same month that while the pace of uranium enrichment by Iran had slowed slightly since the end of last year, Iran was still enriching at an elevated rate of around 7 kg of uranium per month to 60% purity.

Enrichment to 60% brings uranium close to weapons grade, and is not necessary for commercial use in nuclear power production. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons but no other state has enriched to that level without producing them.

Under a now-defunct 2015 agreement with world powers, Iran could enrich uranium only to 3.67%. After then-president Donald Trump pulled the United States out of that deal in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions, Iran moved well beyond the deal’s nuclear restrictions.

The IAEA says the 2015 nuclear deal was “all but disintegrated.”