IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said on Sunday that the two sides had reached a temporary “technical agreement” following his trip to Iran, which recently signaled plans to reduce co-operation with the global nuclear security guard.
The interim agreement reached on Sunday would mitigate the impact of Iran’s withdrawal from the additional protocol, Grossi said. “What we have agreed on is something that is viable, it is useful to eliminate this gap that we have 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 last-minute “rapid inspections”.
“This is not a replacement for what we had before. This is a temporary solution that allows us to continue to give the world assurances about what is happening there, in the hope that we can return to a more complete picture,” Grossi said.
IAEA monitors have been granted comprehensive inspection rights as part of the 2015 Comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA), an important agreement that was intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program and prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons in exchange for improved sanctions. Iran has long argued that its nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes, despite skepticism from the international community.
The two sides were at a standstill. Washington and Tehran have previously insisted that the other must be the first to return under the agreement.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said that as the party that chose to leave the agreement, the responsibility remains with the United States.
“The United States needs to 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 part of the nuclear deal, and the United States is not part of the nuclear deal because of its own withdrawal decision, without taking the routes available to it under the nuclear deal.”
“Until we sit down and talk, nothing will happen. It does not mean that when we sit down and talk we will succeed, but we know that if we do not take this step, the situation is just going to go from bad to 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 business here would be for Iranians to decide to move beyond respect and then I think there is a diplomatic path. ”
“We’re at an early stage here,” Sullivan said. “It will take a job, take a hard-headed, clear-eyed diplomacy, and finally make a decision for Iran that they are ready to take the necessary steps to secure the world and to show the world that their program nuclear) has an exclusively peaceful purpose. ”