UN nuclear watchdog chief Grossi arrives in Iran for talks

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DUBAI (Reuters) – U.N. atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi arrived in Iran for talks on Wednesday, Iranian state media reported, a day after he appealed to Iran’s leadership to take steps to resolve longstanding issues with his agency over its nuclear programme.

Iran’s state news agency IRNA carried a video showing Grossi meeting the spokesperson for Tehran’s state atomic energy agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, after his arrival. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency head has for months sought progress with Iran on issues including a push for more monitoring cooperation at nuclear sites and an explanation of uranium traces found at undeclared sites. 

But little has come from Grossi’s efforts and with the return of President-elect Donald Trump, who is widely expected to restore a maximum-pressure policy on Iran, Grossi’s trip should provide indications of how Iran wants to proceed in the coming months.

“I am far from being able to tell the international community … what is happening. I would be in a very difficult position. So it’s like they (Iran) have to help us, to help them to a certain extent,” Grossi told Reuters on Tuesday.

Iran has stepped up nuclear activity since 2019, after Trump during his first term abandoned a 2015 deal Iran had reached with world powers, under which it curbed enrichment, and restored tough U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Iran’s work on enrichment has been seen by the West as a disguised effort to develop nuclear weapons capability.

Tehran is now enriching uranium to up to 60% fissile purity, close to the roughly 90% required for a nuclear bomb. But Iran has long denied any nuclear-bomb ambitions, saying it is enriching uranium for civilian energy uses only. 

Grossi’s trip comes a week before the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors meet in Vienna with the European parties to the 2015 accord – Britain, Germany and France – to consider whether to raise pressure on Iran given its lack of cooperation.