""If Iran strives for normalcy it must exercise transparency"
"It is hard to imagine that anyone can reach a comprehensive agreement like the current JCPOA when talks with the IAEA in the second negotiations are deadlocked"
StopIranNow.org Via Israel Hayom, I24 News, INN
March 22, 2022
Rafael Grossi - the Director of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - spoke with I24 News in an interview Sunday evening (posted above) and corrected false reports that he has reached an agreement with Iran regarding outstanding inspection issues. He emphasized Iran's continued refusal to cooperate and that it had given the agency the runaround. He said they met over the weekend to agree on a possible way forward.
Director Rafael Grossi told Israel Hayom and i24NEWS that “if Iran strives for normalcy, it must exercise transparency".
Grossi was asked about the traces and uranium particles that were found by IAEA inspectors at two unreported sites and about the fact that Iran has yet to provide responses to questions about this.
"Well, this is a process that has been going on for a long time," he replied. "I assumed the role of [IAEA] director-general at the end of 2019 and immediately started the mission with a very clear, very direct approach toward Iran, noting that the situation cannot continue like this.
If you follow the Iranian issue you might remember that I asked for physical access to a number of places and was rejected at first."
"This is a cause for concern because as you mentioned, we found traces of enriched uranium, meaning uranium that has undergone a very specific process from another, unreported, site where nuclear material should never have been found. So our questions to Iran were very clear, simple, and transparent: if there was nuclear material here, where is it? If there was equipment, where is it, and what was done with it? Because we have no record of that. This brought about a frustrating, circular process of questions and answers that I found to be technically noncredible and that led, at a certain point, to an impasse," he added.
On the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, Grossi said, "This agreement was always dysfunctional; it was in effect but not enforced, when the Trump administration, as you probably remember, unilaterally withdrew from this agreement in 2018. Iran remained in the agreement for a period of time and at one point also began to abandon the nuclear control measures in the agreement.”
"These processes, the IAEA investigation process I head, and the process of negotiations that have resumed with the Biden administration in the US have been progressing to a pretty clear point for all the players and certain, actual progress of the IAEA investigation should have taken place to facilitate the negotiations on a second [nuclear agreement] and reach a positive result,” he added.
"Let me put it this way: it is hard to imagine that anyone can reach a comprehensive agreement like the current JCPOA when talks with the IAEA in the second negotiations are deadlocked," Grossi stated.
"There are many open and pretty technical issues at hand. To simplify it without getting into the convoluted technicalities, I would say that the explanations we got are technically inadequate, meaning that the explanations we got about the presence of those particles are not plausible," said Grossi.
Grossi added that until such time that the nature of the Iranian nuclear program is determined, "The organization should be relentless in its activities" and stated, "So I will say to you what I said to the Iranians – what I made very clear to them: if you want normalcy you must exercise transparency. Otherwise, it would be completely impossible. So I say again – my approach is positive, it is constructive, but it is also rigorous."
Asked how long does the IAEA believe it would take Iran to enrich uranium to a military-grade and possibly get a nuclear bomb should a new deal not be signed in the coming days or weeks, Grossi replied, "You have to distinguish between two very important things: one is the possibility of accumulating nuclear material in a certain amount, and the other is to possess nuclear weapons. Between the two there is a path that can be long or short, depending on the technological capabilities that a country develops if it strives to get nuclear weapons illegally."
Asked how long does the IAEA believe it would take Iran to enrich uranium to a military-grade and possibly get a nuclear bomb should a new deal not be signed in the coming days or weeks, Grossi replied, "You have to distinguish between two very important things: one is the possibility of accumulating nuclear material in a certain amount, and the other is to possess nuclear weapons. Between the two there is a path that can be long or short, depending on the technological capabilities that a country develops if it strives to get nuclear weapons illegally."
The IAEA chief said he understands Israel's concern about the Iranian nuclear program, noting he spoke to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett about these issues.
"The issue of nuclear weapons and the development of nuclear weapons has been a constant concern,” he stressed. "Therefore, I fully understand the concerns that exist and my duty as head of the IAEA is to explain the situation. As I mentioned, there is an open dialogue with the Prime Minister and we will continue with it, of course."
He stressed that "Israel is a very important partner and friend of the IAEA in a number of activities related to the application of nuclear technology that the public may not be familiar with, but are very important, even if they do not go through the strategic path we have described so far.”
"This is why I found the conversation I had with Prime Minister Bennett a few days ago so satisfactory – for us, it is essential. The support for the international organization in these historical moments, when there is so much uncertainty and when the scenario by which countries want to procure existing nuclear weapons, is something that I see as essential," he concluded.
In the way of background Director Grossi voiced support for censuring Iran during the agency’s Board of Governors meeting in November, although he acknowledged that the situation could change as the agency works to resolve the “most immediate challenges” with Iran.
A Sept. 12 agreement allowed inspectors to service remote surveillance cameras at sites that inspectors have not accessed since February, when Iran reduced compliance with agency monitoring. (See ACT, March 2021), but Iran blocked inspectors from installing new cameras at a centrifuge component manufacturing site at Karaj during an IAEA visit to the site on Sept. 26. Iran removed the surveillance equipment from that facility after the equipment was sabotaged in June and said the Sept. 12 agreement does not cover that location.
Grossi told The Washington Post on Oct. 20 that if the monitoring dispute and other issues are not resolved, it will be “extremely difficult” to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Although he said the IAEA is not a “main actor” in efforts to restore the JCPOA, the agency is an “essential element,” given its verification role. He said on Oct. 21 that the IAEA is doing what it can to ensure a baseline of information about Iran’s nuclear program, which is “indispensable” for any future negotiation.
While Biden's State Department uttered political gobbledy·gook at the time, several members of Congress, including Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, were very explicit in supporting censure. After meeting Grossi on Oct. 19, Risch called for “strong U.S. leadership in seeking accountability for Iran’s nuclear activities and pressuring Iran to fulfill its obligations to the international community.”
Iran's newly anointe President Ebrahim Raisi - implicated in the murde of an estimated 30,000 political prisoners in Iran in 1988 - said in September that action by the IAEA board would negatively impact negotiations to restore the JCPOA. Many questioned why the international community was not holding Raisi accountable for his documented crimes against humanity rather than allowing him to and his boss Khamenei play some perverse form of nuclear blackmail with the free world.