The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, held discussions for the second day in Iran on Saturday, aiming to persuade Tehran to cooperate with an investigation into uranium traces found at undeclared sites. According to the Islamic Republic News Agency, Grossi, who arrived in Tehran on Friday for a two-day visit, met for the second time with Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization.
The visit comes amid discussions with Tehran regarding the origin of particles of enriched uranium with a purity level reaching 83.7%, a level very close to the purity required to manufacture nuclear weapons, found at the Fordow enrichment facility, according to a report by the IAEA.
The Iranian news agency quoted Eslami before his meeting with Grossi saying that "monitoring the performance, state, and capability of the nuclear sector in the Islamic Republic is the most important goal on the agency's agenda." He added that "the parties have not fulfilled their commitments" in the nuclear agreement signed in 2015, which is why Iran decided to "reduce its commitments."
Under an agreement signed with six major world powers, Iran had scaled back its nuclear program in exchange for the easing of sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations. However, former U.S. President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the U.S. from the agreement and reinstated harsh American sanctions in 2018, prompting Iran to start violating the nuclear restrictions set in the agreement nearly a year later.
Eslami stated on Wednesday that the enrichment level in the Islamic Republic has reached 60%. Iran's obstruction of an IAEA investigation that has been ongoing for years regarding uranium traces found at three undeclared sites prompted the IAEA Board of Governors, comprising 35 countries, to issue a resolution during its last quarterly meeting in November, urging Tehran to cooperate urgently with the investigation.
European diplomats say that this cooperation has not been realized. Grossi hopes that the meeting with conservative Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will help pave the way towards ending the stalemate. The next quarterly meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors begins on Monday.
