Iran to allow UN inspections of previously blocked nuclear facilities

In a joint statement, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran on Wednesday announced an agreement for UN inspectors to visit two previously blocked nuclear sites. The aim is to verify whether Tehran's nuclear programme continues to be peaceful. This agreement puts an end to an international dispute over the nuclear programme that has pitted the world powers against each other and has gradually isolated Washington. According to the statement, Iran is "voluntarily providing" access to the sites, and inspections have already been scheduled for IAEA specialists to carry out their examinations.

This announcement comes during the first visit to Iran of the new director general of the IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi, who took up the post in 2019. Grossi held talks with the Islamic Republic's nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, in Tehran and both agreed to open "a new chapter of cooperation". This is a sign of the Islamic regime's openness to the control of nuclear weapons.

The confrontation between the United Nations nuclear control body and Tehran intensified in recent months after the IAEA asked Iran to allow its inspectors to enter two nuclear sites. In June, the IAEA board adopted a resolution proposed by the European states, asking Tehran to allow inspectors access to two sites to clarify whether unreported nuclear activities had taken place there in the early 2000s.

Iranian President Hassan Rohani described relations with the IAEA as "very good" and said he hoped to increase cooperation with the agency. The Iranian leader also noted that the vast majority of countries on the Security Council continued to support the 2015 agreement, and expressed hope that "US unilateralism" would come to an end, as reported by the Islamic Republic News Agency.

The international agency will focus on nuclear material and activities relevant to specific protocols, following the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. And although the IAEA has not disclosed the sites inspected, the US newspaper The New York Times, following reports from Israeli intelligence officials, noted that one of the sites to be inspected will be the Abadeh Nuclear Weapons Development Site, where experiments with conventional explosives are believed to have taken place.

Until now, Iran had refused to accept the agency's requests, arguing that the suspicions of activities at the plants were based on Israeli claims. The United Kingdom, France and Germany rejected Washington's measure to maintain an arms embargo on Iran and re-impose sanctions, arguing that they frustrate all efforts to save the 2015 nuclear agreement, from which Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.

On 15 August, at a press conference from his golf course in Bedminster (New Jersey), Trump said he was ready to extend the arms embargo on Iran, which expires on 18 October. But only two of the 15 members of the Security Council voted in favour of the US resolution, underlining the divisions between Washington and its European allies since the US withdrew from the agreement.

The Trump Administration maintains that they have the right to force the re-imposition of sanctions through the "snapback" mechanism of the agreement. This is the last letter with which Washington hopes to extend the arms embargo against Tehran indefinitely. The "snapback" mechanism allows the United States to take advantage of its initial participation in the Iranian nuclear agreement concluded between Tehran and the major powers in 2015 to obtain an automatic re-imposition of all the existing sanctions. As AFP points out, although Trump decided to abandon this agreement in 2018, this measure is still possible owing to the confusing wording of resolution 2231 which, five years ago, proved to be one of the greatest diplomatic achievements of the Obama era.

But with the change of the US administration, the lifting of the 2015 sanctions in exchange for Iranian nuclear commitments has enabled the Islamic Republic, according to the Trump government, to collect billions of dollars used to sow "chaos, blood and terror" in the country, the Middle East and the whole world. For his part, the Russian ambassador in Vienna (headquarters of the IAEA) and permanent representative to international organisations in Austria, Mikhail Ulyanov, celebrated this "breakthrough" between Iran and the International Agency on his Twitter account. "This is further proof that dialogue is more productive than pressure," Ulyanov wrote.