Iran's failure to explain uranium traces is 'big problem', says IAEA chief

Iran's failure to provide credible explanations for traces of uranium found at two undeclared sites is "a big problem" that is affecting the country's credibility, the head of the UN's nuclear inspectorate, has said.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also said Iran and the US could not simply return to the old nuclear deal on exactly the same terms as signed in 2015, but needed a new understanding on how to handle Iran's increased nuclear knowledge, and its possession of more advanced centrifuges.

Grossi is not directly involved in the talks in Vienna, currently in their fifth stage, on the terms for Iran and America's return to mutual compliance with the 2015 deal, but his organisation's technical advice on Iran's credibility and how the agreement needs to be reworked is critical.

The agreement involves Iran allowing sealed cameras to continue to run inside the nuclear sites, but for the IAEA not yet to have access to the footage.

He admitted he was keeping the whole agreement on life support while Iran and America try to reach a reworked version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the name of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

He said it was not his job to give an ultimatum to Iran to explain the cause of the unexplained uranium found at three sites, one of which Iran said was a carpet cleaning facility, but to report the technical truth.

He added: "We found traces of uranium that has been subject to industrial processing in different places, which had not been declared by Iran. That is a big problem. Some people banalise this and say 'this is old stuff'. We have to get to the bottom of this, not for any academic obsession of the director general but because it is non-proliferation relevant."We know that something happened here.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/26/iran-failure-explain-uranium-traces-big-problem-iaea-un