IAEA chief stresses again importance of meeting with Iran FM

In an interview with NBC News, International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said he’s been unable to establish direct communication with Iran’s new administration under President Ebrahim Raeisi.

“I have never spoken to the new foreign minister,” Grossi said. “I hope to be able to have the opportunity to meet with him soon because it’s very important … so when there is a problem, when there is misunderstanding, when there is a disagreement, we can talk about it. I used to have it before, and I would assume it that I would be the normal thing.” Grossi spoke during a visit to Washington.

Grossi has already said he had “no indication” that Iran is currently seeking nuclear weapons while urging Iran for more cooperation with the IAEA inspectors.

Iran and the remaining signatories to the JCPOA known as the P4+1 have held six rounds of talks so far with no results. The Western powers made excessive demands during the talks and the talks were postponed at the end of the previous Iranian administration under Rouhani until the formation of the new government in Iran under President Ebrahim Raeisi.

The new Iranian administration has vowed that it will return to the Vienna talks if they are result-oriented and can yield tangible results for Iran in terms of the removal of the sanctions and abidance of the parties by the JCPOA provisions.

In the latest development with regards to the talks, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said yesterday (Saturday) that the nulcear talks with P4+1 will resume soon.

This is while Amir-Abdollahian has already said that the talks must have tangible results for Iran.

Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on October 5 that Iran will return to Vienna as soon as the internal review process is concluded with no preconditions.

Amid the indifference of the JCPOA parties to continued US violations of the JCPOA, Iran halted voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol, which allows unannounced inspections of its nuclear sites by the IAEA inspectors as per a piece of legislation approved in the Iranian parliament last December.

KI

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