Iran has offered to keep its stock of uranium enriched up to 60% – below the purity levels required to make a nuclear bomb – the head of the UN nuclear inspectorate, Rafael Grossi, has confirmed amid the threat of restored European sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear activities.
“I think this is … a concrete step in the right direction. We have a fact which has been verified by us. It is the first time Iran has agreed to take a different path,” Grossi said in Vienna on Tuesday.
The move negotiated by Grossi with Iranian officials, including the president, Masoud Pezeshkian, on a visit to Tehran last week is designed to head off a move at the IAEA board this week by European diplomats to request a comprehensive report on Iranian compliance that could lead to the snapback of UN sanctions. The agreement covering Iran’s nuclear activities formally expires in September, 10 years after it was negotiated in 2015.
A snapback would involve the reimposition of security council sanctions from earlier resolutions on Iran in the event of “significant non-performance” of Iran’s commitments under the nuclear deal.
“I went last week and I got something, and by moving step by step and getting concrete results the trajectory may be less confrontational,” Grossi said.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has however hinted that the Iranian offer of a cap on enrichment might be withdrawn if the European powers – France, Germany and the UK – insist on commissioning the report. Grossi said he had spoken to Araghchi on Tuesday night but there had been no Iranian threat or warning during the conversation.
Araghchi said in a statement: “If the other parties ignore Iran’s goodwill and interactive approach and put non-constructive measures on the agenda at the meeting of the governing council through the issuance of a resolution, Iran will respond appropriately and proportionately.”
He said the offer to freeze the stockpile was a sign of goodwill, but the European powers are likely to regard the Iranian offer to cap the 60% stockpile as less groundbreaking than either Grossi or the Iranians do. Grossi clearly believes it is a sign of constructive progress after nearly two years of impasse.
He added that four new, experienced nuclear inspectors were being allowed into Iran.
European powers are worried both by Iran’s continued refusal to give IAEA inspectors access to its nuclear sites, and also by the steady increase in its stockpile of nearly weapons-grade uranium. The strikes and counter-strikes between Israel and Iran this year has led to a growing debate inside Iran whether it should drop the fatwa on producing a nuclear weapon, with some Iranian officials claiming they had already mastered most of the techniques necessary to do so. Iran has always claimed that its nuclear work is solely for peaceful civilian purposes.
Israel and the US have both said they will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, but the incoming Trump administration has so far put the emphasis on tightening economic sanctions against Iran rather than a military attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.
In its latest report to the IAEA board, the IAEA said Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium had increased by 17.6kg to 182.3kg (402lbs). Assuming no change, that means Trump would enter office in January with Iran having enough nuclear fuel for four atomic bombs. It would take Iran just a few days to convert the 60% material into weapons-grade material.
