Iran appears to have partially suspended its threat to drastically limit international inspections of its nuclear facilities as of Tuesday, giving Western nations three months to see whether the start of a new diplomatic initiative with the United States and Europe will restore the 2015 nuclear agreement.
After a weekend trip to Tehran, Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Sunday that his inspectors would have “less access” as of Tuesday, but that they could still monitor the main sites where Iran has declared it is producing nuclear material. He did not describe the form these new limits would take, but said there would be a three-month hiatus in some of Iran’s new restrictions under a “technical annex” that has not been made public.
At the same time, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said that under a law passed by the country’s parliament, Tehran would no longer comply with an agreement with the nuclear agency that gives inspectors the right to demand access anywhere. where suspected nuclear activity may have occurred. He also said that inspectors would be prevented from taking images from the security cameras that keep some of the sites under constant surveillance.
The vague announcement seemed to be part of Iran’s maneuvers about how to respond to an offer from the Biden government to resume diplomatic contact over the restoration of the deal that President Donald J. Trump abandoned almost three years ago. President Biden and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken volunteered to join European nations in what would be the first substantial diplomacy with Tehran in more than four years.
“Iran still hasn’t responded,” said Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program on Sunday. “But what happened as a result is that the script was reversed. It is Iran that is diplomatically isolated, not the United States. And the ball is in your court. “
Iran has constantly tried to increase pressure on Washington to lift sanctions, with gradual increases in the amount of nuclear fuel it is producing and announcements that it is starting to enrich uranium at higher levels, closer to suitable bomb materials. Threatening to restrict inspectors has been part of that effort.
But now the Iranians are finding themselves cornered in a corner that they themselves have created: with a presidential election in four months, no one wants to appear weak in the face of international pressure.
Iranian leaders also recognize that Biden’s election gives them the best chance since 2018 that sanctions will be lifted – and international oil sales will flow. This will require restoring the production limits provided for in the 2015 deal. The agreement also requires Iran to undergo instant inspections of undeclared sites under what is called the Additional Protocol, the rules that most members of the International Trade Agency Atomic Energy adheres to allowing broader rights for inspectors.
Both Grossi and White House officials seemed anxious to avoid any suggestion that the limits for inspectors were creating a crisis like the Clinton administration faced in 1994, when North Korea expelled inspectors from the agency and ran for a bomb. In that case, inspectors will continue their work in Iran, even if their views on nuclear fuel production and their ability to track past nuclear activities are restricted.
“Grossi mitigated some damage,” said Andrea Stricker, a researcher at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who has been a major critic of the deal with Iran on Sunday. But she added that “reducing monitoring in any form is extremely problematic. due to the great nuclear advances that Iran has been making ”, especially after the agency started raising questions about previous nuclear activities in places where it had found traces of radioactive material.
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“The IAEA needs to publish the technical agreement and explain exactly how monitoring has been reduced so that the international community can assess the seriousness of Iran’s action,” said Stricker.
Henry Rome, an Iran expert at the Eurasia Group, said the announcement on Sunday “presents an opening, but we are not yet out of danger”, noting that the country has continued to increase its uranium enrichment and to test new and more advanced centrifuges to produce the fuel.
The announcement that Iran had reached some kind of accommodation with Grossi that could buy time for diplomacy sparked reactions from all Iranian factions. And the lack of details from the country’s atomic energy agency and the international nuclear agency provided material both for those who wanted to restore the agreement and for those who found it too restrictive to Iranian skills.
Conservative commentators have turned to social media to criticize the government for circumventing the law passed by Parliament in January that limits inspectors’ access.
“Bypassing the law?” Seyed Nezameddin Mousavi, a conservative lawmaker, tweeted on Sunday, suggesting that the government was trying to circumvent Parliament’s actions. “It looks like my anxiety was justified.”
Proponents of diplomacy praised the government for thinking creatively about how to recognize the legal requirement without removing inspectors. Some suggested that the deal involved Iran’s deal to preserve images recorded by security cameras that monitor fuel production, but would not hand them over to inspectors until the 2015 deal is restored.
“The Iranians agreed with more than meets the eye at this stage, but because if the IAEA is to be fully satisfied, there needs to be continuity of knowledge,” said Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group for Iran. “Basically , postponed the crisis. ”
Rick Gladstone contributed reports.