Copy in clipboard...
IAEA chief eyeing ‘real results’ in talks with Pezeshkian
“He (Pezeshkian) agreed to meet with me at an appropriate juncture,” Grossi said in a statement to a quarterly meeting of his agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors, referring to an exchange after Pezeshkian’s election in July.
“I encourage Iran to facilitate such a meeting in the not-too-distant future so that we can establish a constructive dialogue that leads swiftly to real results,” he said. With nuclear diplomacy largely stalled between the Iranian presidential election and the US one on Nov. 5, Grossi said he wanted to make real progress soon.
Asked at a news conference if his reference to the “not-too-distant future” meant before or after the US election, Grossi said, “No, hopefully before that.”
Iran has stepped up nuclear work since 2019, after then-US President Donald Trump abandoned an agreement reached under his predecessor Barack Obama under which Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of international sanctions.
Iran has repeatedly called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to observe impartiality in its reports on the country’s nuclear activities.
Back in June, the IAEA chief repeated his previous claims about the lack of cooperation on Iran’s side on certain issues, including its refusal to allow several agency inspectors to continue to carry out missions in Iranian nuclear sites.
Iran and world powers reached a landmark nuclear agreement in 2015, under which Tehran curbed parts of its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of sanctions imposed on the Iranian economy.
Tehran started to suspend some of its obligations under the agreement in 2019, a year after the Trump administration abandoned the deal and reinstated sanctions on the country.
Iran then agreed to some additional IAEA inspections under the Joint Statement and resolved issues related to one of the three sites and the alleged presence of uranium particles there.