The United Nations' atomic watchdog chief voiced cautious optimism on Wednesday that Iran will boost inspector access and restore monitoring equipment, and said he’s sending a technical team in the next few days to follow up on Tehran’s commitments.
“I hope there won't be any trouble," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi told Al-Monitor during a briefing with reporters.
“My understanding is that we have agreed on these things," Grossi said. “I know what I agreed [to] in Tehran, and we are sending our technical team to work on that. If there is a problem, I will report it.”
"We still need to start the process of getting these additional, further monitoring and verification capacities,” Grossi said. The process could take “maybe weeks or days.”
“It’s in [Iran’s] hands,” Grossi said of the long-running probe. “If they give us credible information we can work on it, maybe we can move faster in trying to clear this.”
Earlier this month, Grossi met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and the head of the AEOI Mohammad Eslami in Tehran.
During his visit, Iran and the IAEA in a statement affirmed they had agreed to take steps to enhance cooperation and expedite the resolution of outstanding safeguards issues between the two sides.
The two sides agreed that bilateral interactions will be carried out in a spirit of collaboration, with Iran expressing readiness to continue its cooperation and provide further information to the agency to address the outstanding safeguards issues.
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