UN nuclear watchdog chief asks Iran for access to sites flagged by Israel

The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog calls on Iran to allow “prompt access” to two sites where past nuclear activity may have occurred.

“I hope we can do better,” Rafael Grossi, director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), tells reporters when asked about the agency’s current relationship with Iran.

Grossi is speaking at the start of a meeting of the agency’s Board of Governors which is expected to discuss a report earlier this month in which the IAEA expressed “serious concern” that Iran has been blocking inspections at two sites.

“There are areas where our cooperation is ongoing and there is this issue where quite clearly we are in disagreement,” he says.

Grossi repeats an appeal to Iran to “cooperate immediately and fully” with the agency.

If the Board of Governors pass a resolution critical of Iran, it would be the first of its kind since 2012.

Even though the two sites in question are not thought to be directly relevant to Iran’s current activities, the agency says it needs to know if activities going back almost two decades have been properly declared and all materials accounted for.

The report details efforts by the agency’s officials to get access to the locations.

Iran told the agency the report was a source of “deep regret and disappointment” and hinted the queries were based on “fabricated information” from “intelligence services.”

Israel has previously claimed its intelligence services unearthed information on an alleged previous nuclear weapons program in Iran.

Grossi says there were “no legal ambiguities” around the requests for access.

“The agency works on the basis of a very rigorous, dogged, meticulous technical and scientific analysis of information,” he says, insisting: “Nothing is taken at face value.”

Western states have voiced concern over Iran’s denial of access to the sites concerned, with the United States being particularly vocal.

— AFP