IAEA chief admits gaps in Iran's weapons-grade enrichment tracking

Rafael Grossi says technical verifications should soon demonstrate if Iran deliberately enriched particles to a level high enough to make a nuclear weapon

Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, on Monday said that his experts would “not take a very long time” to determine whether Iran had made a deliberate attempt to enrich uranium close to 90 per cent purity, a level high enough to produce a nuclear bomb, or whether the spike had been unintended.

Speaking days after announcing that a new deal with Iran would allow the IAEA to conduct further monitoring activities, Mr Grossi said that his inspectors would be undertaking “painstaking work” to reconstruct Iran's recent nuclear progress.

“Things were happening constantly without us getting any information and hopefully this will now stop”, Mr Grossi told reporters in Vienna.

“My inspectors will not only have to interpret and read this mass of information, but there will also be actual gaps, because what was not recorded or taped, we cannot re-enact”, added Mr Grossi.

Iran disconnected surveillance cameras nine months ago after the UN agency asked for answers regarding unexplained traces of uranium in three areas that were not supposed to be dedicated to nuclear activity.

“There will be a need for us to sit down with our Iranian counterparts, look into records, agree on certain specific measures in order to try to reconstruct this jigsaw puzzle.”

Uranium particles enriched up to 83.7 per cent have been detected at Iran's underground Fordow plant about 100km south of Tehran — just under the 90 per cent needed to produce an atomic bomb, according to a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Mr Grossi said this was a “serious development” which his inspectors are investigating, but he also noted that “spikes do occur”.

“I have to say it”, he told reporters, “or I would be jumping immediately to conclusions that it was part of a deliberate campaign of enrichment at almost 90 per cent that would have serious consequences.”

Inspectors will be able to determine whether “this is a one shot, or a one-time occurrence, or whether there was a more dedicated activity”, said Mr Grossi.

Iran has denied wanting to acquire atomic weapons and says it had made no attempt to enrich uranium beyond 60 per cent purity. Yet it has said that “unintended fluctuations … may have occurred” during the enrichment process.

A joint statement issued on Saturday after Mr Grossi's return from Tehran said Iran “expressed its readiness to … provide further information and access to address the outstanding safeguards issues” — a reference to the uranium traces.

Iran will also allow on a voluntary basis the agency to implement further monitoring activities. “Modalities will be agreed between the two sides in the course of a technical meeting which will take place soon in Tehran”, the statement said.

Speaking from Vienna airport, Mr Grossi also said on Saturday that the IAEA would gain access to people of interest in an investigation into uranium traces at undeclared sites.

However, Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi later told state news outlet Irna that the issue of access was “never raised” during the IAEA Director General's visit.

Questioned on Monday by journalists on this apparent contradiction with his statements, Mr Grossi said that not everything had been “put on paper.”

“You may have noted that in the joint statement there is reference to certain modalities that need to be agreed upon”, he said.

A technical team will be travelling “very soon” to Iran for technical discussions, added Mr Grossi, who declined to give a detailed list of places or dates related to this process.

“I’m satisfied that we seem to be moving towards more firm ground”, said Mr Grossi about his recent discussions with Iranian officials, which included his first meeting ever with President Ebrahim Raisi.

“We see real substance when it comes to Fordow [plant], where the agency will be inspecting nearly every other day”, he added.

Tehran and the IAEA have been at loggerheads since Iran stepped back from its commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal which collapsed after the US withdrew in 2018. Iran has since increased its uranium enrichment and resisted calls to explain the presence of traces of the element at undeclared sites.