Iran Rejects Amendments for Restoration of Nuclear Deal

Iran's permanent representative to Vienna-based international organizations ruled out the need for an additional document to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, after the chief of the United Nations nuclear watchdog called for a new agreement with Iran under the new United States’ administration. 
“There would be no renegotiation on the deal and in case of its revival, there is no necessity for a new document on the agency’s role. It’s not needed to complicate the situation,” Kazem Gharibabadi said in a series of tweets. 
His remarks came in response to Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi, who told Reuters that a separate document would be needed to restore the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. 
JCPOA has been unraveling since the United States pulled out and reinstated the lifted anti-Iran sanctions. Tehran has scaled down its commitments based on the deal’s provisions in a series of moves that it says will be quickly reversed once the sanctions are removed. 
US President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office on Jan. 20, has said Washington will rejoin the deal “if Iran resumes strict compliance” with the agreement that imposed strict curbs on its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of sanctions.
Grossi, who heads the agency that polices the deal, said there had been too much non-compliance for the agreement to simply fall back into place.
“I cannot imagine that they are going simply to say, ‘We are back to square one’ because square one is no longer there,” Grossi said at IAEA headquarters.
He said decisions needed to be made at the political level on how Iran’s steps beyond its JCPOA limits should be reversed. 
“It is clear that there will have to be a protocol or an agreement or an understanding or some ancillary document which will stipulate clearly what we do,” he said. 
Gharibabadi stressed that the responsibilities of the parties and the IAEA have already been determined during negotiations in which the agency also played a part.  
“@iaeaorg played its part during negotiations on the JCPOA. The commitments of the parties and @iaeaorg tasks have been delicately drafted and agreed, and each side knows what to do to implement the deal,” he said. 
With Tehran’s nuclear measures, according to Grossi, JCPOA is “moving full circle back to December 2015” when the deal’s restrictions were put in place and large amounts of material and equipment were in Iran swiftly removed. 
“If they want to do it [comply], they could do it pretty fast. But for all of those things, we had a charted course [in Dec. 2015],” he said.
Gharibabadi also reiterated his call on the agency to avoid acting beyond its authority. 
“As I said before, @iaeaorg sole role is to monitor and verify the voluntary nuclear-related measures as detailed in the JCPOA and to provide regular factual updates in this regard. Presenting any assessment on how the commitments are implemented (e.g, referring to breach) is absolutely beyond the mandate of the agency and should be avoided,” he said.