IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said Sunday that the two sides had reached temporary “technical understanding” after their trip to Iran, which had recently pointed out plans to reduce cooperation with the watchdog. world nuclear.
The interim agreement reached on Sunday would alleviate the impact Iran would withdraw from the additional protocol, Grossi said. “What we agreed on is something that is viable, it is useful to bridge this gap that we are having now, save the situation now,” he said.
While the same number of international inspectors will remain in Iran, Grossi said, their access to nuclear facilities will be more limited and they will no longer be allowed to conduct “fast-track” last-minute inspections.
“This is not a replacement for what we used to have. It is a temporary solution that allows us to continue to give the world guarantees of what is happening there, in the hope that we can return to a more complete picture,” he said. Grossi.
IAEA monitors had received extensive inspection rights as part of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA), a flagship agreement aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear program and preventing the country from develop nuclear weapons in exchange for relief from sanctions. Iran has long considered its nuclear program intended for peaceful purposes, despite skepticism from the international community.
Both parties had been at a standstill. Washington and Tehran had previously insisted that the other should be the first to re-enforce the agreement.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said that as the party that chose to leave the deal in the first place, the responsibility lies with the US.
“The United States must establish its good faith to return to the nuclear deal,” Zarif said in an interview with CNN earlier this month. “The United States is not involved in the nuclear deal and the United States is not in the nuclear deal because of its own decision to withdraw, without taking the routes it had available within the nuclear deal.”
“Until we sit down and talk, nothing will happen. That doesn’t mean that when we sit down and talk, we will be successful, but we know that if we don’t take this step, the situation is just going to get worse,” he said. a senior State Department official.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, told CNN last week that U.S. officials were particularly concerned about Iran’s decision to refuse to cooperate with the IAEA and that the “first order of work here would be for the Iranians to make the decision to go beyond compliance, and then I think there is a diplomatic route. ”
“Here we are at an early stage,” Sullivan said. “It will take work, it will take diplomacy with hard, clear eyes, and it will finally make Iran’s decision that they are ready to take the necessary steps to secure the world and prove to the world, that its (nuclear) program it has exclusively peaceful purposes “.