International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

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Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (right) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi pose for a photo before their meeting in Tehran, on November 14, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi met Iran’s top diplomat on Thursday (November 14, 2024) as he began crunch nuclear talks in Tehran weeks before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

During his first term in the White House from 2017 to 2021, Mr. Trump was the architect of a policy called “maximum pressure” which re-imposed sweeping economic sanctions that had been lifted under a landmark 2015 nuclear deal.

“Rafael Grossi… who arrived in Tehran last night at the head of a delegation to negotiate with the country’s top nuclear and political officials, met with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported.

Later, Mr. Grossi is expected to meet President Masoud Pezeshkian in their first meeting since his election earlier this year. He is also scheduled to meet the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Mohammad Eslami, before addressing a joint news conference. Mr. Grossi’s visit is his second to Tehran this year but his first since Mr. Trump’s re-election.

In 2018, Mr. Trump unilaterally abandoned the 2015 deal that gave Iran relief from international sanctions in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear programme designed to prevent it developing a weapons capability, an ambition it has always denied.

Head of the IAEA “will do what he can to prevent the situation going from bad”: Expert

The following year, Iran started to gradually roll back its commitments under the deal, which barred it from enriching uranium to above 3.65% purity.

The IAEA says Iran has significantly expanded its stocks of uranium enriched to 60%, a level that has triggered international alarm as it is much closer to the 90% level needed for a nuclear warhead.

“The head of the IAEA “will do what he can to prevent the situation going from bad to worse” given the significant differences between Tehran and Western capitals,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran specialist at the Crisis Group, a U.S.-based think tank.

Iran has blamed the incoming U.S. president for the standoff. “The one who left the agreement was not Iran, it was America,” government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Wednesday (November 13, 2024.)

Iran expands nuclear capacities; faces criticism: IAEA

“Mr. Trump once tried the path of maximum pressure and saw that this path did not work.” Mr. Grossi’s visit comes just days after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Iran was “more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities”.

The archfoes have exchanged unprecedented direct attacks in recent months as tensions soared during the intensifying war between Israel and Iran allies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Mr. Trump’s looming return to the White House in January has only added to international fears of all-out conflict between Israel and Iran.

“The margins for manoeuvre are beginning to shrink,” Mr. Grossi warned in an interview with AFP on Tuesday (November 12, 2024,) adding that “it is imperative to find ways to reach diplomatic solutions”.

Repeated calls for more cooperation from Iran

Mr. Grossi has said that while Iran does not have any nuclear weapons at this moment in time, it does have plenty of enriched uranium that could eventually be used to make one.

Iran’s new President, who won election in July on a platform to improve ties with the West, has said he wants to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. But all efforts to get the nuclear agreement off life support have failed. The IAEA chief has repeatedly called for more cooperation from Iran.

In recent years, Tehran has switched off surveillance devices used to monitor its nuclear programme and effectively barred IAEA inspectors.

The foundations of Iran’s nuclear programme date back to the late 1950s, when the United States signed a civil cooperation agreement with the Western-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

In 1970, Iran ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which requires signatory states to declare and place their nuclear materials under IAEA control.

But with Iran threatening to hit back at Israel for its latest missile strikes, some lawmakers have called on the government to revise its nuclear doctrine to develop an atomic bomb.

They called on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate authority in Iran, to reconsider his longstanding religious edict or fatwa banning nuclear weapons.

Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Mohammad Eslami and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi shake hands after a joint press conference in Isfahan, Iran, May 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

UN atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi, visiting Iran on Tuesday, urged the country to adopt “concrete” measures to bolster cooperation on its nuclear programme and address the international community’s concerns.

At a news conference in the city of Isfahan, Mr. Grossi said he had proposed in talks with Iranian officials that they “focus on the very concrete, very practical and tangible measures that can be implemented in order to accelerate” cooperation.

The International Atomic Energy Agency director-general held talks with senior Iranian officials including Atomic Energy Organization’s head Mohammad Eslami.

Settling differences

Mr. Grossi insisted on the need to “settle differences” on the nuclear issue while West Asia was going through “difficult times”, particularly with the war between Israel and the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. “Sometimes, political conditions pose obstacles to full-fledged cooperation” between Iran and the international community, he said.

To overcome these obstacles, he said, “we need to come up with concrete steps that are going to be helpful in bringing us closer to these solutions that we all need”.

Mr. Grossi said a March 2023 deal with Iran was “still valid” but required more “substance”.

The agreement was reached during Mr. Grossi’s last visit to Iran and outlined basic cooperation measures including on safeguards and monitoring.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi attends a meeting with local officials and representatives from fishing and business groups in Iwaki, northeast of Tokyo, Wednesday, March 13, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

The head of the U.N. atomic agency on March 12 emphasised to Japan’s government the importance of transparency in its ongoing discharges of treated radioactive wastewater at the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi also expressed support for increasing Japan’s nuclear capacity as the country looks to it as a stable, clean source of power.

Mr. Grossi is in Japan for the first time since releases of the treated water began in August. His visit comes one day after Japan marked 13 years since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered the Fukushima disaster.

Also read: Explained | The Fukushima N-wastewater controversy

The 2011 disaster damaged the Fukushima plant’s power supply and reactor cooling functions, triggering triple meltdowns and causing large amounts of radioactive wastewater to accumulate. After more than a decade of cleanup work, the plant began discharging the water after treating it and diluting it with large amounts of seawater on August 24, starting a process that’s expected to take decades.

The discharges have been opposed by fishing groups and neighbouring countries including China, which banned all imports of Japanese seafood immediately after the release began. Japan has sought the IAEA’s help with safety monitoring and evaluation to allay concerns.

IAEA offers technical assistance to restart power plant

Mr. Grossi will examine the discharge and sampling facility on March 13 after meeting with the local residents. He last visited the plant in July after issuing an IAEA review predicting only negligible impact from the discharges. The IAEA comprehensive report later concluded that the discharges have satisfied international safety standards.

It is “very important to show the transparency of this process,” Mr. Grossi told Economy and Industry Minister Ken Saito.

He also offered Japan technical assistance to improve the idled Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Japan’s northcentral region of Niigata, which is run by the Fukushima Daiichi operator. It and the government are keen to restart it soon.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s No. 6 and No. 7 reactors had passed regulators’ safety tests for a restart, but they were suspended from making further preparations after safeguarding problems surfaced in 2021. Those lasted until December, when the regulators acknowledged improvement.

IAEA is sending a team of experts to the plant later this month to assist Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings’ effort to gain public trust. “We want to be of assistance in helping Japan’s nuclear capacity to be up and running as soon as possible,” Mr. Grossi told Mr. Saito.

The restart remains uncertain because it is subject to host community’s consent. The Jan. 1 earthquake in the nearby Noto region rekindled safety concerns and prompted nuclear regulators to order a review of evacuation plans around nuclear facilities nationwide.

Japan’s renewd push for nuclear energy

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government has reversed earlier plans for a nuclear phaseout and is accelerating the use of nuclear power in response to rising fuel costs related to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and pressure to meet decarbonisation goals.

Mr. Grossi will meet with Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa on March 14 and is expected to discuss cooperation in nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, North Korea and Iran and the peaceful use of atomic energy. Japan also wants to provide financial support for the IAEA’s effort to protect Ukrainian nuclear plants from Russia’s war, officials said.

Earlier on March 12, Mr. Grossi in his meeting with Environment Minister Shintaro Ito pledged the IAEA’s cooperation in the disposal of radioactive soil that came out of decontamination across Fukushima. The soil has been in an interim storage facility in Fukushima. A government plan to recycle it for road construction and other public works after safety tests has met fierce protests. The government has promised a final disposal plan outside of the prefecture by 2045.

U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The United Nations (UN) nuclear chief on September 18 said he asked to meet Iran’s President on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to try to reverse Tehran’s “uncalled for” ban on “a very sizable chunk” of the agency’s inspectors.

Rafael Grossi stressed that the Iranian government’s removal of many agency cameras and electronic monitoring systems installed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also make it impossible to give assurances about the country’s nuclear programme.

Mr. Grossi said he wrote to President Ebrahim Raisi telling him it is “very important” to meet about Tehran’s targeting of inspectors, including “some of the best and most experienced”.

“I’m waiting for an answer,” Mr. Grossi said in an interview with The Associated Press on September 18.

He also warned that escalating fighting is increasing the danger of a nuclear accident at Europe’s largest nuclear plant in Ukraine. Mr. Grossi said he is seeking to re-establish a dialogue with North Korea, which expelled UN nuclear weapons inspectors in 2009.

And he invited China to see how the IAEA tests treated water released from Japan’s Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant, which led Beijing to ban Japanese seafood.

The IAEA chief said Iran has the right to determine who enters the country, but he said he didn’t understand why Tehran was withdrawing authorisation for a “good number” of inspectors, which is “making my job much more difficult”. He called it a step in the wrong direction.

“It’s very difficult to get the expertise to go to very sophisticated uranium enrichment facilities with thousands of (centrifuge) cascades, lots of tubing and piping, and it requires … a lot of experience,” he explained. “So, when you start limiting that … I have to say, this is not good. Stop it!” Iran has denied impeding the work of IAEA inspectors though it has also been years since its experts have been able to examine surveillance footage.

The Vienna-based IAEA reported earlier this month that Iran had slowed the pace of enriching uranium to nearly weapons-grade levels. That was seen as a sign that Tehran was trying to ease tensions after years of strain with the United States, and one that took place as the rivals were negotiating a prisoner swap and the release of billions in frozen Iranian assets — which all took place on Monday.

Since Iran started limiting the actions of IAEA inspectors a little over a year ago, Mr. Grossi said, the agency hasn’t been able to see how many centrifuges and parts needed to assemble them are being produced.

So when the IAEA has to draw a baseline of where Iran’s nuclear programme is, he said, “How do I do it?” Mr. Grossi said military operations are increasing near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is on the front line of the Ukrainian counter-offensive. The June 6 destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in Russian-controlled territory led to deadly flooding, ruined crops in one of the world’s breadbaskets and lowered the level of water used to cool Zaporizhzhia’s reactors.

“Complications are adding up,” Mr. Grossi said, “and making the safety of the plant very, very fragile.” Initially, he said he urged both sides to adopt a no-fire zone outside the plant. That became impossible. So he has been urging the Ukrainians and Russians not to attack any nuclear plant.

Zaporizhzhia is in a Russian-controlled area but is staffed mainly by Ukrainians. There are also some Russian experts and IAEA inspectors who from time to time have acted as “a buffer” and defused some tense situations, Mr. Grossi said.

The IAEA chief called North Korea’s growing nuclear programme “one of the most difficult issues we have in front of us”.

Since the expulsion of IAEA inspectors in 2009, Mr. Grossi said, the agency has followed what Pyongyang has done from afar. “North Korea has become a de facto nuclear weapon possessor state,” he said, and that is “not a good development”.

Mr. Grossi said North Korea’s programme, including enrichment and construction of new reactors, has been growing without international monitoring or assessment of its safety. He wouldn’t say who the IAEA is engaging with to try to “turn the page” with North Korea but did say: “I am optimistic.” As for China’s concerns about the water being discharged from Japan’s Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant, Mr. Grossi said IAEA daily monitoring shows the level of tritium, a radionucleide that could be problematic, is extremely low.

The IAEA chief said South Korea also had concerns about the water being discharged from Fukushima, which was damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. He said he spoke to the President and Foreign Minister, and South Korea sent experts to see how the monitoring of the discharged water is being carried out.

Mr. Grossi said he wrote to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi a few days ago making a similar offer to explain the IAEA’s activities. He expressed hope that he could meet Wang in New York “to dispel doubts.” said Mr. Grossi: “I’m eager and available.”