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Digesting and spinning the IAEA-Iran agreement on September 9

Today, September 10, brought media reports of reactions to the Cairo Iran-IAEA agreement on September 9. The AP and Reuters tried their best to digest the technical matters, while The Jerusalem Post spun it, as could be expected. Here are highlights from those reports. 

            Stephanie Liechtenstein of AP reported quotes from Director General Grossi’s statement on Wednesday, September 10, to the ongoing IAEA Board of Governors meeting: ‘An agreement between Tehran and the United Nations' atomic watchdog will provide the U.N. agency access to all of Iran's nuclear facilities and require Iran to report on the whereabouts of material that was at sites attacked by Israel earlier this year. [T]the document “provides for a clear understanding for the procedures of inspection notifications and their implementation.” The agreement “includes all facilities and installations in Iran and it also contemplates the required reporting on all the attacked facilities including the nuclear material present at those." It will "open the way for the respective inspections and access” without specifying when that would happen. "The technical nature of this document does not diminish its profound significance. Iran and the agency will now resume cooperation in a respectful and comprehensive way.” 
            Her notable comment was ‘without specifying when’. That is exactly right. And I expect that we will not be told the details of timing. 

            And here is how Yonah Jeremy Bob spun it in The Jerusalem Post on September 10: ‘Contradictory statements issued on Wednesday by IAEA Chief Rafael Grossi and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi about the agreement they reached the day before in Cairo left extremely unclear what the broader impact of that deal would be on the nuclear standoff between Tehran and the West. 
              Araghchi said: "Based on reports that Iran will issue in the future, the nature of access will have to be discussed at an appropriate time," essentially reducing the deal to the limited progress that the IAEA had made with Iran already last week, far short of what England, Germany, France, and the US are demanding. 
            Bob ended his dispatch with: ‘Israel has threatened additional attacks on Iran's nuclear program.’ 
            Bob gets across the Israeli message: Iran and IAEA are not doing and will not do anything right and we are ready to attack again. 

            The important statement made by Iran Foreign Minister Araqchi was reported by both Bob and Reuters: ‘[T]he IAEA's board of governors' meeting on Wednesday would be crucial concerning how cooperation with the IAEA develops’. We wait with fingers crossed to learn what the IAEA Board does this week and the IAEA General Conference does next week.

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