IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said Monday that the lack of information from Iran regarding the status of its nuclear facilities and associated material and the watchdog\u2019s inability to conduct verification activities at these facilities is a matter of serious proliferation concern.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe best, shortest way for a positive outcome is for Iran to engage with us,\u201d he told a press conference after opening the quarterly meeting of the IAEA board of governors in Vienna.
Grossi then affirmed that at this point, \u201cthere’s no engagement\u201d with Iran, adding that Tehran has indicated it will not cooperate until a broader political agreement is reached.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe do not subscribe to this logic,\u201d he said, stressing that Iran’s obligations as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty \u201cdo not disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIn his statement at the opening of the Board, Grossi said the Agency has neither received information from Iran regarding the status of its declared nuclear material or facilities nor had access to any of those facilities to conduct in-field verification activities.<\/p>\n
\nTherefore, he noted, the Agency was unable to discharge its safeguards responsibilities under the NPT Safeguards Agreement at declared nuclear facilities in Iran. <\/p>\n
\nConsequently, the IAEA was not able to verify their status for safeguards purposes and the associated nuclear material, he added.<\/p>\n
\nContinuity of Knowledge<\/p>\n
\nGrossi then said it is more than a year since the Agency lost continuity of knowledge in relation to the previously declared inventories of LEU and HEU enriched up to 60% U-235 at the declared nuclear facilities affected by the military attacks of June 2025. <\/p>\n
\nThe IAEA chief said the UN watchdog has been completely blind regarding Iran’s nuclear program since at least June 2025, since the US and Israel launched a 12-day conflict that included strikes on nuclear sites.<\/p>\n
\nGrossi called on Iran \u201cto engage with the agency constructively in order to make possible the full and effective implementation of agency safeguards in Iran and to fulfill its responsibilities under the NPT Safeguards Agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nHe said a return to diplomacy and negotiations aimed at finding a solution to issues related to Iran\u2019s nuclear program is imperative, adding that the agency stands ready to support such efforts. \u201cThe situation regarding Iran\u2019s nuclear program has implications for the global nonproliferation regime.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nAt his press conference following a speech to the board, Grossi said Iran had still not provided information on damage to nuclear facilities or on its nuclear material inventory.<\/p>\n
\nHe said the Cairo Agreement required Tehran to provide such information, including whether the inventory had changed following the attacks and why the agency had been unable to access the facilities.<\/p>\n
\nSafety of Inspectors<\/p>\n
\nGrossi said the safety of IAEA inspectors was not an insurmountable obstacle to verification work.<\/p>\n
\nHe belittled explanations by Iran, Russia, and China that tried to claim Tehran has not allowed IAEA inspections out of concern for the inspectors\u2019 security in a war zone.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe will not put anyone in danger,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\nUkraine has been a worse and more constant war zone, Grossi affirmed, adding that inspectors have still managed to carry out inspections at nuclear facilities throughout the war between Russia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\nPickaxe Mountain<\/p>\n
\nGrossi was asked about US President Donald Trump’s remarks about the possibility of bombing facilities in the Pickaxe Mountain, and whether any new attack would affect the agency’s activities.<\/p>\n
\nHe declined to comment on \u201cnational decisions,\u201d saying only that the lesson of recent events was that a diplomatic solution was needed to give credible assurances that \u201cnothing untoward\u201d was happening in Iran.<\/p>\n
\nReferring Tehran to Security Council<\/p>\n
\nConcerning the resolution drafted by the United States, Britain, France and Germany seeking to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for failing to comply with its nuclear reporting obligations, Grossi said that \u201cmy job with Iran continues, irrespective of the resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThe draft, expected to be submitted and voted on this week seeks, asks Grossi to \u201csubmit this resolution to all members of the agency and to the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIt also demands that Iran \u201curgently remedy its non-compliance\u201d and allow inspections to ensure \u201cthe non-diversion of nuclear material,\u201d Bloomberg said, citing a copy of the document.<\/p>\n
\nThe US resolution, backed by European members of the IAEA board also \u201cstresses its support for a diplomatic solution\u201d while encouraging \u201call parties to constructively engage in diplomacy,\u201d according to Bloomberg.<\/p>\n
\nPrior to the June 2025 strikes, the IAEA calculated that Iran possessed approximately 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, which is close to the 90% needed to make a bomb and well above the 3.67% limit set by a 2015 now-defunct agreement with Iran.<\/p>\n
\nLater, Grossi mentioned \u201cthe historic breakthrough in safeguards implementation matters that has occurred in Syria.\u201d <\/p>\n
\nHe said Syria\u2019s new government agreed to provide information and grant the IAEA access to the Deir Ezzor site and other locations in Syria to address the outstanding safeguards issues stemming from the country\u2019s past nuclear activities.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI welcome Syria\u2019s transparency and cooperation with the Agency which facilitates the resolution of the outstanding safeguards issues related to Syria\u2019s past nuclear activities. I will provide more details of this progress a little later in my statement,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said Monday that the lack of information from Iran regarding the status of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-393437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}