Iran pledges to restore monitoring equipment at nuclear sites, says IAEA | Iran

Iran has pledged to restore cameras and other monitoring equipment at its nuclear sites and to allow more inspections at a facility where particles of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade were recently detected, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Saturday.

Restoration of the cameras is among assurances reportedly given to the UN nuclear agency that Tehran will finally assist an investigation into uranium particles found at undeclared sites, it said.

The breakthrough came as the watchdog’s director general, Rafael Grossi, who earlier met the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, in Tehran, returned to Vienna and said that some of the monitoring activities that were not operating would be restored.

A joint statement from the IAEA and Iran said: “Iran expressed its readiness to … provide further information and access to address the outstanding safeguards issues.”

The statement did not go into detail on the extent of the assurances but the possibility of improved relations between the UN body and Iran is likely to ward off fresh calls from western countries for Iran to cooperate, diplomats said.

Iran has made similar promises before that have yielded little or nothing. The country is supposed to provide access to information, locations and people, Grossi said after returning from Iran before a meeting of the IAEA’s board of governors.

Iran would also allow reinstallation of extra monitoring equipment that had been put in place under the 2015 nuclear deal, but was removed last year. The visit to Iran came shortly after the IAEA reported that uranium particles enriched up to 83.7% had been found at an underground nuclear site.

Fears are growing that Iran has accelerated enrichment but Grossi said the Iranians had agreed to boost inspections at the facility by 50%. He also confirmed the agency’s findings that there has not been any “production or accumulation” of uranium at the higher enrichment level.

Nonproliferation experts say Tehran has no civilian use for uranium enriched to even 60%. A stockpile of material enriched to 90%, the level needed for weapons, could quickly be used to produce an atomic bomb, if Iran chooses.

The 2015 nuclear deal with world powers limited Tehran’s uranium stockpile and capped enrichment at 3.67% – enough to fuel a nuclear power plant. It also barred nuclear enrichment at Fordo, which was built deep inside a mountain to withstand attacks from the air.

The US unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018, reimposing crushing sanctions on Iran, which then began openly breaching the deal’s restrictions.

The IAEA has accused Iran of stonewalling its investigation into traces of processed uranium found at three undeclared sites. Its board of governors censured Iran twice last year for failing to fully cooperate.