Iran’s talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be “technical” and “complicated,” the country’s foreign ministry said ahead of a visit by the officials of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, marking the first since Tehran cut ties last month following the June conflict triggered by Israeli strikes, the Al Jazeera reported.
Esmaeil Baghaei, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told reporters on Monday that a meeting may be organised with Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi during the IAEA’s visit, “but it is a bit soon to predict what the talks will result since these are technical talks, complicated talks,” Al Jazeera reported.
The visit by IAEA officials comes after President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered Iran on July 3 to suspend cooperation with the nuclear watchdog after an intense 12-day war with Israel. The conflict saw the United States launch massive strikes on Israel’s behalf against key Iranian nuclear sites, Al Jazeera reported.
In an interview with Al Jazeera last month, Pezeshkian said his country is prepared for any future war Israel might wage against it, adding he was not optimistic about the ceasefire between the countries. He confirmed Tehran’s commitment to continuing its nuclear programme for peaceful purposes.
He said in the interview that Israel’s strikes, which assassinated leading military figures and nuclear scientists, damaged nuclear facilities and killed hundreds of civilians, had sought to “eliminate” Iran’s hierarchy, but “completely failed to do so.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency on Monday that Massimo Aparo, the IAEA’s deputy director general and head of safeguards, had left Iran after meeting with an Iranian delegation including Foreign Ministry officials and the IAEA to discuss “the method of interaction between the agency and Iran.”
Gharibabadi said consultations would continue in the future but did not provide further details. The IAEA did not immediately issue a statement about Aparo’s visit, which did not include any planned access to Iranian nuclear sites.
Ties between Iran and the IAEA deteriorated after the watchdog’s board said on June 12 that Iran had breached its non-proliferation obligations, a day before Israel’s air strikes that sparked the conflict, Al Jazeera reported.
Baghaei criticised the IAEA’s lack of response to the Israeli strikes, stating, “Peaceful facilities of a country that was under 24-hour monitoring were the target of strikes, and the agency refrained from showing a wise and rational reaction and did not condemn it as it was required,” according to Al Jazeera.
Araghchi had previously said cooperation with the agency, which will now require approval by Iran’s highest security body, the Supreme National Security Council, would be about redefining how both sides cooperate. This decision will likely further limit inspectors’ ability to track Tehran’s nuclear programme, which had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels.
Iran has had limited IAEA inspections in the past during negotiations with the West, and it remains unclear when talks between Tehran and Washington over its nuclear programme will resume, if at all.
US intelligence agencies and the IAEA have assessed that Iran last had an organised nuclear weapons programme in 2003. Although Tehran has enriched uranium up to 60 percent, this remains below the weapons-grade level of 90 per cent. (ANI)
