TEHRAN, Iran – The United Nations chief of nuclear surveillance met with Iranian officials on Sunday in an attempt to preserve its inspectors’ ability to monitor Tehran’s atomic program, even when authorities said they planned to turn off surveillance cameras in these locations.
Rafael Grossi’s arrival in Tehran comes as Iran tries to pressure Europe and the new Biden government to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, from which President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States in 2018.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who under President Hassan Rouhani helped reach the nuclear deal, said the cameras of the International Atomic Energy Agency would be turned off despite Grossi’s visit to comply with a law passed by parliament.
“This is not a deadline for the world. This is not an ultimatum, ”Zarif told government broadcaster Press TV, in English, in an interview that aired before meeting Grossi. “This is an internal internal issue between parliament and the government.”
“We have a democracy. We must implement the country’s laws. And parliament passed legislation – whether we like it or not. “
Zarif’s comments marked the highest-level recognition of what Iran planned to do when it stopped following the so-called “Additional Protocol”, a confidential agreement signed between Tehran and the IAEA as part of the nuclear agreement. The IAEA has additional protocols with several countries that it monitors.
Under the protocol with Iran, the IAEA “collects and analyzes hundreds of thousands of images captured daily by its sophisticated surveillance cameras,” the agency said in 2017. The agency also said it had placed “2,000 tamper-evident seals on nuclear material. and equipment. “
In his interview, Zarif said the authorities would be “required by law not to supply tapes for these cameras”. It was not immediately clear whether this also meant that the cameras would be turned off entirely, as Zarif called it a “technical decision, not a political decision”.
“The IAEA will certainly not get images from these cameras,” said Zarif.
The Vienna-based IAEA did not respond to a request for comment on Zarif’s comments, although Grossi was due to address journalists on his return to Vienna on Sunday night. The agency said last week that the visit was aimed at finding “a mutually acceptable solution for the IAEA to continue essential verification activities in the country”.
There are 18 nuclear facilities and nine other sites in Iran under IAEA safeguards.
From Washington, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden remains willing to negotiate with Iran over the return to the nuclear deal, an offer previously rejected by Zarif.
“He is prepared to go to the table to talk to the Iranians about how we will get back strict restrictions on his nuclear program,” Sullivan told CBS’s “Face the Nation” program. “This offer remains standing, because we believe that diplomacy is the best way to do it.”
Regarding American citizens detained by Iran, Sullivan added: “We have started to communicate with the Iranians on this issue.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told state television on Sunday night in response to Sullivan that “there are no direct negotiations between Iran and the US in any field”. However, Khatibzadeh said the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which has cared for American interests in the decades since the 1979 hostage crisis, has passed messages between countries on prisoner issues since Biden took office.
Grossi met on Sunday with Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s civilian nuclear program. Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi, later posted that “Iran and the IAEA held fruitful discussions based on mutual respect, the result of which will be released tonight ”.
Iran’s parliament passed a bill in December that would suspend part of the UN inspections of its nuclear facilities if European signatories do not provide relief from oil and banking sanctions by Tuesday.
Iran has already slowly moved away from all the limitations of the nuclear deal on its uranium stockpile and has begun to enrich itself by up to 20%, a technical step away from adequate levels for weapons. It also started spinning advanced centrifuges barred by the agreement, which saw Iran limit its program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.
A growing series of incidents since Trump’s withdrawal has threatened the entire Middle East. More than a year ago, a US drone attack killed a major Iranian general, prompting Tehran to later launch ballistic missiles that wounded dozens of American soldiers in Iraq.
A mysterious explosion also hit Natanz’s Iranian nuclear facility, which Iran described as sabotage. In November, Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who founded the country’s military nuclear program about two decades earlier, was killed in an attack that Tehran attributes to Israel.
Zarif mentioned the attacks in his interview with state television, saying the IAEA should keep some of its information confidential for security reasons.
“Some of them may have security ramifications for Iran, whose peaceful nuclear facilities have been attacked,” said Zarif. “For a country whose nuclear scientists have been killed in terrorist operations in the past – and now recently with Mr. Fakhrizadeh – confidentiality is essential.”