DUBAI (Reuters) – Talks with the UN’s chief of nuclear surveillance have been constructive, Iran’s most sensible nuclear official, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Tuesday after Rafael Grossi made a stopover to request inspectors’ access to two former atomic sites.
Grossi, who runs the International Atomic Energy Agency, needs Iran to allow its inspectors to enter the sites because the company suspects they may still house undeclared nuclear materials, or lines from them.
“Our verbal exchange today was very constructive. He agreed that the firm will take on its independent and pro-day work and that Iran will fulfill its legal commitments,” said Salehi, director of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, according to news firm STUDENT ISNA.
“A further bankruptcy of cooperation between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency will begin,” Salehi said, though he added that “Iran will not settle for any other request beyond its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal.”
“We are running to succeed in agreeing on the activities of verifying @IAEAorg’s promises in Iran,” Grossi tweeted after the Salehi assembly, without giving additional details. But some informants said it may be just a sign that Iran agrees to grant the IAEA to any of the sites after a months-to-month standoff.
Iran has reported that the company seeks to rely on Israeli information, which it says is inadmissible.
Last week, Washington suggested to the UN Security Council that it reimposed sanctions lifted as a component of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with global powers, from which the United States withdrew.
Tehran said Grossi’s scale is not similar to U.S. sanctions measures and called on the IAEA to “distance it from the political tension of other countries.”
“There are disorders that want to be dealt with in Array … this means a political technique towards Iran,” Grossi said, according to Iranian media.
“The IAEA will allow third countries to influence their relations with any other country.”
Grossi will meet with President Hassan Rohani and other officials during his visit.
(Written through Parisa Hafezi; Edited through Alison Williams and Giles Elgood)
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