IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi expressed serious concerns on Monday regarding Iran’s failure to clarify questions regarding possible undeclared nuclear material and related activities.
Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of the IAEA’s Board of Governors, Grossi ratcheted up the pressure on the Islamic Republic for failing to grant his inspectors access to two nuclear facilities and failing to clarify undeclared nuclear material which the inspectors discovered last year.
“I note with serious concern that, for over four months, Iran has denied us access to two locations and that, for almost a year, it has not engaged in substantive discussions to clarify our questions related to possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities,” said Grossi.
He continued, “This is adversely affecting the Agency’s ability to resolve the questions and to provide credible assurance of the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities at these locations in Iran.”
Moreover, Grossi said, “I call on Iran to cooperate immediately and fully with the Agency, including by providing prompt access to the locations specified by us.”
When pressed by members of the media about whether he would take concrete steps to escalate against Iran in order to bring it into compliance, Grossi quickly demurred, saying that was an issue for the Board of Governors.
At one point, Grossi was asked, with an air of criticism, why he was creating a confrontation with the Islamic Republic over old nuclear sites based on what Iran claims in biased intelligence when the IAEA has access to the current nuclear sites.
The IAEA director-general responded that his agency only confronted Iran after an extensive and meticulous process of cross-checking and verifying all information it received from any third parties.
Further, he said that if Tehran had answered questions posed to it months ago, it might not have been necessary to ask for access to these sites.
Also, he said that any new information the IAEA might have received from third parties was added to substantial information which the agency has possessed for years.
Grossi added that he would not be intimidated from confronting Iran over those issues in disagreement based on any threat that the regime might cancel cooperation in other areas.
Regarding the two nuclear facilities the IAEA wishes to visit and the unexplained nuclear material, The Jerusalem Post previously reported that virtually all of the evidence leading to the IAEA pressure on Iran for these issues relate to a January 2018 Mossad operation.
During that operation, the Mossad successfully spirited out of Iran massive amounts of physical and electronic secret nuclear files which the regime had sought to conceal from the IAEA about its nuclear weapons program.
Separate from the debate over access to resolving the above issues, Grossi confirmed that even as Tehran is violating certain limits placed on it by the 2015 nuclear deal, the nature of those violations has not escalated and the IAEA is being allowed to fully monitor these violations.
The bottom-line regarding the violations is that Iran has reduced its breakout time for enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon from 12 months down to around six months or less, but has not reduced the breakout time further in the last few months.
While Iran has increased its low enriched uranium stockpile closer to being an eventual basis for two nuclear weapons, it has not even started to enrich the uranium to medium levels, let alone to weaponization levels.
Following the IAEA meeting, Minister of Intelligence, Eli Cohen, said, “Words and political speeches are not enough. The IAEA has been asking Iran for clarifications for about a year without results. There are two suspicious facilities that IAEA inspectors have not been granted access to since January 2020.”
“Without any doubt, the Iranian regime is hiding its nuclear activity from the international community. The same regime which consistently declares its intentions to destroy the State of Israel and to wipe it off the map,” said Cohen.
He added, “I urge the IAEA and its Director General Rafael Grossi...to not only condemn Iran’s violations of the nuclear agreement, but to act proactively against Teheran’s nuclear plans.”
Finally, Grossi addressed a variety of challenges which the IAEA is coping with during the coronavirus era, including complicating inspectors’ ease of travel and having to fall back on virtual meetings for the Board of Governors.