Grossi allegedly ‘wants to have the opportunity to restart the relationship at the highest level’
Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, is expected to meet Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday in Tehran to “relaunch the dialogue,” according to a diplomatic source.
The meeting is scheduled for “early morning” before returning to Vienna, the headquarters of the UN nuclear watchdog, the source said Wednesday.
“He had made it clear in recent weeks that he would only travel to Tehran if he could speak with the president,” the source added.
Faced with the deterioration of cooperation, Grossi allegedly “wants to have the opportunity to restart the relationship at the highest level.”
He “will arrive in Tehran on Friday for high-level meetings scheduled for Saturday,” reported the Iranian news agency Fars, without giving further details.
This visit will come at a time when advances in Iran’s nuclear program are causing serious concern. The IAEA detected in the Fordo underground plant particles of 83.7 percent enriched uranium, just below the 90 percent needed to produce an atomic bomb.
This discovery came after a technical modification at the level of two cascades of centrifuges, which Iran had not previously reported to the IAEA. The UN body asked for “clarifications” and “discussions are still ongoing” to determine whether this threshold was reached accidentally or intentionally, according to the report.
Grossi will try to find out more and obtain from Iran “a strengthening of access to the site and an increase in the number of inspections,” specified the diplomatic source. Depending on the progress made during this trip, the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany will decide whether or not to submit a draft resolution to the IAEA Board of Governors, scheduled for next week in Vienna.
