Inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog have returned to Iran, the head of the agency and Iranian officials said, despite an Iranian ban on cooperation with it.
“We are about to restart… there are many (nuclear) facilities, some were attacked and some were not. We are discussing what kind of practical modalities can be implemented in order to facilitate the restart of our work,” Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told Fox News on Tuesday.
In June, Israel launched strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, sparking an unprecedented 12-day military conflict and prompting Iranian retaliatory attacks on Israeli cities. The United States also joined, striking three Iranian sites in the conflict’s final days.
The IAEA withdrew its team from Iran in July after parliament passed a law halting cooperation with the agency in response to the US-Israeli strikes. Grossi said the inspectors withdrew because inspections were “not possible” due to “wartime.”
Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf confirmed the return of UN inspectors during a parliament session Wednesday, Iranian state media said. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the inspectors were allowed to monitor fuel replacement at the Bushehr nuclear power plant following a decision by the country’s Supreme National Security Council.
Araghchi denied that an agreement was reached on “new cooperation” between Iran and the IAEA, according to a post on his Telegram channel.
During the conflict, Iran accused the IAEA of giving Israel a pretext to attack by releasing a report declaring Tehran was not complying with its safeguard obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons through strict inspections of nuclear sites.
“Ever since, we’ve been in negotiations with Iran to return, it’s not an easy situation… because for some in Iran the presence of international inspectors is detrimental to their international security,” Grossi, who is in Washington, D.C. to meet US officials, told Fox News in a televised interview.
Israel launched its attack a day before Iran and the US were set to hold a round of negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program. Talks have since stopped, with no clear timeline for resumption.
Kamran Ghazanfari, a member of Iran’s parliament, criticized comments by Ghalibaf in Wednesday’s legislative session, which suggested that the government could allow inspectors to enter the Bushehr nuclear plant and a Tehran research site.
The lawmaker said the decision would be an “explicit violation” of the law “obliging the government to suspend cooperation with the agency.”
On Tuesday, Iranian negotiators met with representatives from France, Germany and the United Kingdom, known as the E3, in Geneva in an attempt to avert the reimposition of UN sanctions on Iran, which were lifted under a landmark nuclear agreement signed 10 years ago.
The E3 told the UN they would move to reimpose sanctions through what’s known as the ‘snapback’ mechanism if Iran continues to violate its obligations under the 2015 deal.
Iran scaled back compliance with the deal and accelerated uranium enrichment after US President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in his first term.
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