IAEA Officials in Tehran to Resolve Ambiguities

Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency have been in Tehran since Tuesday to visit, check and negotiate over ambiguities created as a result of an inspector’s “misinterpretation”, Iran’s top nuclear chief said. 
“The ambiguities are being resolved,” Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told reporters on the sidelines of a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, ISNA reported. 
A report was published by Bloomberg on Sunday, citing two diplomats as saying that the International Atomic Energy Agency has found uranium enriched to 84% in Iran, very close to weapons grade which is around 90%. 
The IAEA said on Twitter that it was aware of recent media reports and that it was discussing the results of recent verifications with Iran and would inform the IAEA Board of Governors as appropriate. 
Iran dismissed the report as a political attempt to impose further pressure on the country, pointing out that other levels of purity may naturally be produced as a by-product in the enrichment process, while the criterion for assessment is the end product. 
Earlier this month, the agency had also criticized Iran for failing to inform it of a “substantial” change to the interconnections between the two cascades, or clusters, of centrifuges enriching uranium to up to 60% at the Fordow enrichment plant. 
Eslami said Iran would continue its cooperation with the IAEA, always trying to prevent new ambiguities along the way. 

One-Sided Implementation 

Iran has been enriching uranium to up to 60% purity since April 2021, much above the 3.67% cap imposed by the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, in return for sanctions relief.  
The measure was part of Iran’s countermeasures against the United States’ reimposition of sanctions, after its withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018. 
Negotiations have been underway since early 2021 to work out how both sides can resume compliance, but the talks have been stalled for months over final differences. 
Eslami said the JCPOA was a deal between Iran and the six world powers to build trust, but the main parties did not meet their obligations, with the US even preventing others to meet theirs. 
It is completely unacceptable that a strong political drive is seeking JCPOA implementation in a one-sided way while the other participants do not fulfill their commitments, he added. 
“We will not tolerate political pressure, propaganda and invention of issues,” he said. 
A key stumbling block in talks to revive the nuclear deal is the agency’s questions about nuclear material that it claims have been found at three undeclared sites in Iran.
Tehran denies the allegation and demands the closure of the IAEA probe, saying the questions are based on fabricated data and aimed at winning more concessions out of Iran in the nuclear talks. 
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Wednesday that IAEA officials would travel to Tehran in the coming days “in the framework of concluding negotiations.” 
“We hope that IAEA Director [General Rafael] Grossi will reach an agreement with Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization from a non-political and technical standpoint,” he said during a press briefing with his Iraqi counterpart in Baghdad.