TEHRAN, Iran – The head of the UN nuclear watchdog met with Iranian officials on Sunday to try to preserve the ability of its inspectors to control Tehran’s nuclear program, even when authorities said they planned to cut surveillance cameras in these places.
Rafael Grossi’s arrival in Tehran comes as Iran tries to pressure Europe and the new Biden administration to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, from which President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States in 2018.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who under President Hassan Rouhani helped reach the nuclear deal, said the International Atomic Energy Agency’s cameras would be turned off despite Grossi’s visit to continue a law passed by parliament.
“This is not a deadline for the world. This is not an ultimatum, “Zarif told the government-run TV Press TV in an interview before meeting Grossi.” This is an internal matter between parliament and the government. “
“We have democracy. We are supposed to enforce the laws of the country. And the parliament passed legislation, whether we like it or not. ”
Zarif’s comments marked the highest recognition of what Iran planned to do when it stopped following the so-called “Additional Protocol,” a confidential agreement between Tehran and the IAEA reached as part of the nuclear deal. The IAEA has additional protocols with several countries that it controls.
According to the protocol with Iran, the IAEA “collects and analyzes hundreds of thousands of images captured daily by its sophisticated surveillance cameras,” the agency said in 2017. The agency also said then that it had collected · Placed “2,000 tamper-proof seals on nuclear material and equipment”.
In his interview, Zarif said authorities would be “required by law not to provide tapes for these cameras.” It was not immediately clear whether this also meant the cameras would be completely turned off, as Zarif defined this as a “technical decision, this is not a political decision”.
“Certainly, the IAEA will not get images from these cameras,” Zarif said.
The Vienna-based IAEA did not respond to a request for comment on Zarif’s comments, although Grossi was expected to address reporters when he returned to Vienna late Sunday night. The agency said last week that the visit was aimed at finding “a mutually pleasing solution for the IAEA to continue essential verification activities in the country.”
There are 18 nuclear facilities and nine more locations in Iran under IAEA safeguards.
From Washington, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden was still willing to negotiate with Iran the return of the nuclear deal, an offer previously rejected by Zarif.
“He’s ready to go to the table to talk to the Iranians about how we’re getting back to strict restrictions on his nuclear program,” Sullivan told CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “This offer remains in place, because we believe diplomacy is the best way to do it.”
On U.S. citizens detained by Iran, Sullivan added, “We have begun to communicate with Iranians on this issue.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told state television on Sunday night that he replied to Sullivan that “there are no direct talks between Iran and the US in any field.” However, Khatibzadeh said the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which has taken American interests into account in the decades following the 1979 hostage crisis, has sent messages between countries on prisoner issues since Biden left. take office.
Grossi met earlier Sunday with Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s civilian nuclear program. Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi, later tweeted that “Iran and the IAEA have held fruitful discussions based on mutual respect, the outcome of which will be published this evening.”
The Iranian parliament passed a bill in December that would suspend part of UN inspections of its nuclear facilities if European signatories do not provide relief from banking and oil sanctions by Tuesday.
Iran has already slowly moved away from all the limitations of the nuclear deal on its uranium stock and has begun to enrich it by 20%, a technical step away from weapons grade levels. It has also begun spinning advanced centrifuges banned by the agreement, which saw Iran limit its program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
A series of incidents that have increased since Trump’s withdrawal has threatened the Mideast in general. More than a year ago, a U.S. drone strike killed a senior Iranian general, prompting Tehran to launch ballistic missiles that wounded dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq.
A mysterious explosion also affected the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz, which Iran has called sabotage. In November, Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who founded the country’s military nuclear program some two decades earlier, was killed in an attack that Tehran blamed on Israel.
Zarif presented the attacks in his interview with state television, saying the IAEA should keep some of its information confidential for security reasons.
“Some of them may have security ramifications for Iran, whose peaceful nuclear sites have been attacked,” Zarif said. “For a country whose nuclear scientists have been killed in terrorist operations in the past – and now recently with Mr Fakhrizadeh – confidentiality is essential.”