Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency delivered a statement to the IAEA Board of Governors yesterday in which he reported, among other things, that Iranian cooperation in resolving the matter of uranium traces found at three locations inside Iran in 2019 and 2020 has been less than satisfactory. “Unfortunately, Iran has repeatedly either not answered, or not provided technically credible answers to, the Agency’s questions,” he said. “It has also sought to sanitize the locations, which has impeded Agency verification activities.”
Therefore, “The Agency’s comprehensive assessment of what took place—based on our technical evaluation of all available safeguards-relevant information—has led us to conclude that these three locations, and other possible related locations, were part of an undeclared structured nuclear programme carried out by Iran until the early 2000s and that some activities used undeclared nuclear material,” Grossi continued. “Arising from this, the Agency also concludes that Iran did not declare nuclear material and nuclear-related activities at these three undeclared locations in Iran. As a consequence of this, the Agency is not in a position to determine whether the related nuclear material is still outside of safeguards.” Though not mentioned by Grossi, the agency’s conclusion contrasts with a 2007 U.S. intelligence assessment which concluded that Iran had ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
In a press conference afterwards, Grossi, in reference to the ongoing U.S.-Iran talks, stressed that uranium enrichment is not inherently a prohibited activity, adding that Iran’s current stockpile of enriched uranium does not amount to the material needed for a nuclear weapon. “Uranium enrichment per se is not a forbidden activity, which is something my Iranian counterparts always say,” he said, reported IRNA. “At the same time, when you accumulate and continue to accumulate, and you are the only country in the world doing this at a level very, very close to what is needed for a nuclear explosive device, then we cannot ignore it,” he added.
