JAKARTA - The United Nations atomic watchdog reached an agreement with Iran on Sunday to resolve the most pressing issues between them, keeping a monitoring program running, raising hopes of new talks on a broader nuclear deal with the West.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi secured the deal on a Tehran trip he called constructive, ahead of a meeting of the 35-member Board of Governors this week, where Western powers threatened to seek a resolution criticizing Iran for obstructing the IAEA.
A resolution risking escalation with Tehran could kill prospects of resuming broader indirect talks between Iran and the United States about reviving the 2015 Nuclear Deal, which aims to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
The talks stopped in June, as Ebrahim Raisi took office as Iran's president after winning the presidential election last year. Western powers have urged Iran to return to negotiations, saying time is running out as its nuclear program advances far beyond the limits set by the deal, which Washington abandoned in 2018.
"This is not a permanent solution, it cannot be a permanent solution. It has always been seen, at least for me, as a temporary substitute, as a step to give time for diplomacy", Grossi told reporters at Vienna airport after his trip.
"We managed to fix the most pressing problem: The loss of knowledge that we were about to face until yesterday. Now we have a solution", he added.
Meanwhile, the coordinator of the stalled nuclear talks and EU Political Director Enrique Mora said on Twitter the agreement provides room for diplomacy, adding that talks are important to resume as soon as possible.
To note, the 2015 Nuclear Deal introduced monitoring of additional areas of Iran's nuclear program, beyond those overseen under Iran's core legal obligations to the IAEA. Iran said in February it was ignoring the monitoring, which covers areas such as manufacturing parts for centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium.
Fearing that without monitoring these areas, Iran could secretly siphon off an unknown amount of equipment and materials that could potentially be used to build nuclear weapons, Grossi had previously reached an agreement with Tehran to keep the equipment in service, though Iran later abandoned this as well.
The equipment should be serviced every three months to ensure that the memory card is not full and there are no gaps in monitoring. With three months having passed just over two weeks ago, the deal is coming as time goes by.
Grossi stopped saying, the so-called continuity of knowledge has been maintained. However, calling the agreement provides the IAEA with the technical means it needs.
"The reconstruction and unification of the jigsaw puzzle will come when there is agreement at the JCPOA level, but by then we will have all this information and there will be no loopholes", he said, referring to the 2015 Nuclear Deal under its full name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Service to the monitoring equipment will begin in a few days, Grossi said, adding that damaged cameras removed from a centrifugal workshop that fell victim to alleged sabotage in June will be replaced.
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The deal did little to resolve another issue between the IAEA and Iran, Tehran's failure to explain traces of uranium found at three undeclared former sites. But Grossi said Iran had invited him to return soon and he hoped to meet with the country's "supreme authorities".
"This may take some time. It's not heroic but it's much better than any alternative", he said of efforts to solve the problem.
Separately, diplomats said the United States and its European allies had not yet decided whether to seek a resolution on Iran at a meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors, which began on Monday.
"Obviously a resolution is unlikely now", said a Vienna-based diplomat.
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