Skip to main content

IAEA and Iran: Good and bad news

Good news. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported on August 11 that the IAEA’s deputy director general and head of the Department of Safeguards Massimo Aparo held talks in Tehran that day with Iranian officials. Tehran Times reported that both sides agreed to advance technical discussions and continue the consultations. 

Bad news. Tehran Times also reported that, during the meeting, the ‘Iranian delegation strongly criticized the IAEA’s silence in response to recent attacks—carried out with U.S. support and involvement—against nuclear facilities in Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz.’ Iran demanded ‘corrective measures for its "improper processes" regarding Iran’s nuclear activities’. 
Iran International’s report on August 12 notes ‘Tehran continues to bar IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, accusing him of complicity in the recent attacks.’ 

What is going on here? From the IAEA side, they wish to work with Iran to continue the implementation of its NPT safeguards agreement, resuming Iran’s reporting and IAEA’s inspections, starting with nuclear facilities not militarily attacked, e.g. the Bushehr nuclear power plant. That is aimed at restoring the ‘technical’ level of cooperation required by the safeguards agreement. 
From the Iran side, the highest priority is political/economic, not technical. They want to avoid further military attack by Israel and the U.S., to obtain relief from the U.S. sanctions, and to have Security Council resolution UNSC/RES/2231 (2015) come to its end as scheduled on October 18, 2025, without the ‘snapback’ of UNSC sanctions that the E3 is threatening. Implementing its safeguards agreement with IAEA is for Iran, perhaps, an irritant in comparison, but they are trying to gain some political advantage from it by mixing political accusations against the Director General and the IAEA, meaning its Board of Governors, with technical implementation procedures. That is unfortunate. 

What comes next? Iran better be careful. If it does not get back to properly implementing its safeguards agreement with IAEA, the Director General and the IAEA Board will be obligated to again find Iran in noncompliance. And it is likely the Board would decide to send that finding to the UN Security Council for action.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘New war with Israel at any moment’, ‘still digging through rubble’

The news about Iran has taken an ominous tone in the last couple days. Here is some reporting and commentary.  Newsweek on August 18, 2025, reported that Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior military adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said ‘ We are not in a ceasefire; we are in a stage of war. No protocol, regulation, or agreement has been written between us and the U.S. or Israel. A new war with Israel could break out at any moment .’  Yonah Jeremy Bob commented in The Jerusalem Post on August 19, 2025, that ‘ Khamenei can either “drink from the poisoned chalice” of diplomatic concessions … or face more airstrikes, possibly next time some targeting him directly ’.   Bob also noted that ‘ right now Iran is still digging through rubbl e’. The U.S. attacked Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan on June 22. Two months of digging. No surprise that there has been no public news about that.
Post a Comment
Read more

Assessing possible outcomes of the snapback mechanism

The initiation by the E3 of the 30-day snapback mechanism in the UN Security Council makes everything more difficult and there is great uncertainty about the outcome. Will it be peaceful with a new nuclear deal with Iran, negotiated by the U.S., endorsed by the UNSC and verified by IAEA, or will Iran withdraw from NPT with further military action by Israel and the U.S.?                 To perhaps shed a little light on what the outcome will be, here is my analysis of how the players - Iran, U.S. and E3 - may be assessing the acceptability of the range of outcomes. Four levels of acceptability were used: 1 Fully acceptable; 2 Less acceptable; 3 Just acceptable; and 4 Not acceptable. Four near term 30-day outcomes are listed, and two optimistic outcomes with an interim U.S.-Iran agreement reached within a 6-month extension.                 For the 30-day near term, the best outcome would b...
Post a Comment
Read more

‘Making nuclear fuel’ under the NPT

It is with some hesitation that I take issue with the latest publication of the renowned Henry Sokolski and Sharon Squassoni on August 15 in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, titled: “ Actually, the NPT doesn’t guarantee a right to make nuclear fuel .”  But someone should defend the IAEA and international safeguards! Here are points in question.            ‘ The [NPT] treaty was designed to prevent dangerous bombmaking activitie s.’  NPT is far more complex than that. It is common to state the three pillars of NPT: nuclear disarmament; nuclear nonproliferation; and peaceful uses of nuclear technology. Nonproliferation involves the commitment of non-nuclear states not to pursue nuclear weapons and to accept IAEA inspection to confirm that commitment is being followed. Perhaps Sokolsky intends to refer to INFCIRC/153, which lays out how IAEA and the state cooperate to carry out that confirmation. If so, INFCIRC/153 is not designed to ‘prevent’...
Post a Comment
Read more