Talks between Iran and the US over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program are “in a very crucial” stage, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said on Thursday while on a visit to the Islamic Republic.
The comments by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi included an acknowledgment his agency would likely be key in verifying compliance by Iran should a deal be reached. Iran and the US are to meet again today in Rome for a new round of talks after last weekend’s first meeting in Oman.
Grossi’s visit also coincided with Saudi Arabian Minister of Defense Prince Khalid bin Salman’s, the highest-ranking official from the kingdom to visit Iran since the two countries reached a Chinese-mediated detente in 2023. That is as Saudi Arabia tries to end its decade-long war against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen — even as new, intense US airstrikes target them.
Photo: Iranian Foreign Ministry via AP
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear program if a deal is not reached, while Iranian officials increasingly warn that they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.
“I’m not in a rush to do it, because I think that Iran has a chance to have a great country and to live happily without death — and I’d like to see that, that’s my first option,” Trump said during a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Oval Office when asked about a possible attack.
Grossi arrived in Iran on Wednesday night and met with Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi, who is now in Moscow for separate talks likely over the negotiations.
On Thursday, Grossi met with Atomic Energy Organization of Iran head Mohammad Eslami, then later toured a hall featuring some of Iran’s civilian nuclear projects.
“We know that we are in a very crucial, I would say, stage of this important negotiation, so I want to concentrate on the positive,” Grossi told Iranian media.
“There is a possibility of a good outcome. Nothing is guaranteed. We need to make sure that we put all of the elements in place ... in order to get to this agreement,” he said.
“We know we don’t have much time. So this is why I’m here. This is why I’m in contact with the United States as well,” he added.
Eslami said Iran expected the IAEA to “maintain impartiality and act professionally,” a report from the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency said.
Since the nuclear deal’s collapse in 2018 with Trump’s unilateral withdrawal of the US from the accord, Iran has abandoned all limits on its program and enriches uranium to up to 60 percent purity — near weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.
Surveillance cameras installed by the IAEA have been disrupted, while Iran has barred some its most experienced inspectors. Iranian officials also have increasingly threatened that they could pursue atomic weapons, something the West and the IAEA have been worried about for years since Tehran abandoned an organized weapons program in 2003.
Grossi in an interview with a French newspaper said that “Iran has enough material to build not one but several bombs.”
“It’s like a jigsaw puzzle; they’ve got the pieces and one day they might be able to put them together,” he told Le Monde. “There’s still a long way to go before that happens. But they’re not far off, admittedly.”
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric called the upcoming Iran-US talks a “a good sign.”
“We very much hope that the dialogue between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran yields a positive outcome which will see the lowering of tensions in the Gulf region, in the Middle East and between the two countries,” he said.
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