International Atomic Energy Agency officials will travel to Washington next week to confer with the US as concerns grow about their inability to account for Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb grade uranium, according to diplomats with knowledge of the situation.
International Atomic Energy Agency officials will travel to Washington next week to confer with the US as concerns grow about their inability to account for Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb grade uranium, according to diplomats with knowledge of the situation.
The trip has been planned after IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi’s top inspector failed in a recent attempt to win Iranian approval to resume monitoring after Israel and Iran’s 12-day war in June, said three diplomats, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive information.
The move comes as the United Nations nuclear watchdog grows increasingly despondent about the prospect of returning inspectors to Iran following their expulsion during the June conflict, which effectively ended international oversight of the extent and purpose of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear capabilities.
Iran continues to insist that chemical and radiological hazards at sites bombed by the US and Israel remain too unsafe to resume IAEA inspections. While Tehran suggested to IAEA safeguards chief Massimo Aparo on Aug. 11 that visits may soon be possible to sites unaffected by the strikes — such as the Russian-built nuclear-power plant on the Persian Gulf — access to Iran’s main nuclear-fuel complex remains a no go, according to the diplomats.
“We have not reached the point of cutting off cooperation with the agency, but future cooperation will certainly not resemble the past,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi told state-run Islamic Republic News Agency in an interview published Wednesday.
