Iran has agreed to allow a technical delegation from the U.N. nuclear watchdog to visit in the coming weeks to discuss future cooperation between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to New York for United Nations meetings, Gharibabadi clarified that the team’s visit would focus solely on diplomatic and procedural matters.
“The delegation will come to Iran to discuss the modality, not to go to the (nuclear) sites,” he said.
The IAEA declined to comment directly on his remarks but confirmed that Director General Rafael Grossi is “actively engaging with all parties involved in the Iran nuclear issue.”
The agency has repeatedly emphasized the importance of restoring access for inspectors, particularly after recent airstrikes by Israel and the U.S. targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Those attacks aimed to cripple Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Tehran denies seeking a nuclear weapon and says its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes.
“Our Atomic Energy Organization is assessing, actually, the damages to the nuclear installations, and we are waiting to receive their report. In this regard, it’s a very dangerous work. We do not know what has happened there ... because of the risks of the radiation,” Gharibabadi said.
Diplomats have raised particular concerns about the fate of some 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium stockpiles, which Iran has not updated the IAEA on.
Gharibabadi said the IAEA has not officially asked about the fate of those stockpiles and that Tehran “cannot say anything now because we do not have any valid and credible report from (Iran’s) Atomic Energy Organization.”
Any negotiations over Iran’s future nuclear program will require its cooperation with the IAEA, which angered Iran in June by declaring on the eve of the Israeli strikes that Tehran was violating nonproliferation treaty commitments.
Gharibabadi said he would travel to Istanbul to meet with Britain, France and Germany on Friday.
They, along with China and Russia, are the remaining parties to a 2015 nuclear deal that the U.S. quit in 2018. Under the deal, sanctions on Iran were eased in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Separately, Tehran and Washington have held five rounds of nuclear talks this year mediated by Oman.
Gharibabadi said these are focused on negotiating transparency measures by Iran regarding its nuclear program and the lifting of U.S. sanctions.
