The return of the IAEA agency inspectors to Iran after a European threat to impose sanctions on Tehran
The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, announced that a team of agency inspectors had “returned to Iran” for the first time since the Israeli and US strikes on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities in June.
Tehran suspended its cooperation with the UN agency for failing to condemn the unprecedented war launched by Israel on June 13, in which the United States intervened by bombing three nuclear facilities.
“The first team of IAEA inspectors has returned to Iran… and we are about to start again,” Grossi told Fox News in an interview broadcast Tuesday.
He added, “In Iran, as you know, there are several facilities, some of which were attacked but not others… We’re currently discussing practical measures that can be taken to enable us to resume our work there”.
Grossi’s statements came on the same day that Iran and the European Troika (Britain, France, and Germany) held talks in Geneva, in which Tehran sought to prevent the Europeans from activating the trigger mechanism and re-imposing international sanctions.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, who attended the talks, said it was time for the three European countries to make the right choice and give diplomacy time and space.
European countries are threatening to reimpose sanctions at the end of this month.
The “snapback mechanism” included in the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and major powers allows the re-imposition of UN Security Council sanctions on Tehran if it violates its obligations under the agreement.
The agreement’s effects became null and void after the United States unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions on Iran.
Iran responded a year later by gradually rolling back its core commitments under the agreement.
Tuesday’s meeting was the second between Iranian and European diplomats since the end of the 12-day war between the Iran and Israel.
The surprise Israeli offensive disrupted nuclear negotiations between Washington and Tehran and prompted Tehran to suspend its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Tehran affirmed its readiness to cooperate with the agency “in a new way,” taking into account its security interests.
Western countries and Israel suspect that Tehran is seeking to acquire a nuclear bomb, a charge Iran denies, asserting its right to continue its nuclear program for civilian purposes.
