Tehran: Iran has played back by UN Nuclear Inspectors and says it doesn’t mean full cooperation has resumed.
Officials suggested instead of a “new form” of working with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) weeks after ties were frozen in the wake of deadly Israeli and US strikes in the nuclear places in the country in June earlier this year.
Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency began working at the most important nuclear place in Bushehr in southwestern Iran, the nuclear watchdog’s boss, Rafael Grossi, said the first team to enter the country since Tehran formally suspended collaboration with the UN Agency last month.
“No final text has yet been approved on the new collaborative framework with IAEA, and the views are exchanged,” said Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, cited by State -TV.
The agency’s inspectors left Iran after Israel launched his unprecedented attack on June 13 and beat nuclear and military facilities as well as residential areas and killed more than 1,000 people.
Washington later came along with strikes at nuclear facilities in Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz.
Iran retrieved with missile and drone attacks that killed dozens in Israel. A ceasefire between Iran and Israel has been in place since June 24.
Iran subsequently suspended its collaboration with the IAEA, referring to the agency’s lack of condemnation of the Israeli and US attacks.
But on Wednesday, Grossi said the inspectors were “there now” and added, “Today they inspect Bushehr.”
According to the law suspending the cooperation, inspectors can only access Iranian nuclear locations with approval of the country’s top security body, Supreme National Security Council.
Tehran has repeatedly said that future cooperation with the agency will take “a new form”.
The spokesman for Iran’s nuclear energy organization, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said the IAEA inspectors would oversee the replacement of fuel at the Bushehr atom power plant.
He did not mention whether inspectors would access elsewhere, including Fordo and Natanz, which were hit during the war.
‘Lakmus test’
Grossi, on a visit to Washington, said discussions about inspection of other places in progress without any immediate appointment.
“We continue the conversation so that we can go to everywhere, including the facilities that have been affected,” he said.
He said Iran cannot limit inspectors only to “non-attacked facilities.”
“There’s no such thing as a LA Carte Inspection work.”
The return of the inspector came after Iranian diplomats held conversations with colleagues from Britain, France and Germany in Geneva on Tuesday.
Their second round of conversations since the Israeli attacks included discussion of European threats to trigger the reintroduction of UN sanctions against Iran before permanently abolished in mid-October.
The window to trigger the so-called “snapback mechanism” of a nuclear deal in Moribund 2015 between Iran and Major Powers will close on October 18.
During their previous meeting with Iran in July, the three European powers suggested to extend the Snapback period if Tehran resumed negotiations with the US and cooperation with IAEA, the Financial Times reported.
Iran later rejected Europeans’ right to extend the deadline and said it was working with its allies, China and Russi, to prevent the reintroduction of sanctions.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Karim Gharibabadi said Wednesday that if snapback is triggered, “the path to interaction, which we have now opened with the international nuclear energy agency, will also be completely affected and will probably stop.”
Tuesday, Russia circulated a draft of the UN Security Council Resolution with the aim of pushing back to the deadline to trigger snapback sanctions by six months, according to the text seen by AFP.
The Russian proposal does not determine the prerequisites for the extension of the deadline.
Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said the updated proposal was designed to “give more breathing place for diplomacy”, adding that he hoped it “will be acceptable”.
“It will be a kind of lacquer test for those who really want to maintain diplomatic efforts, and for those who do not want any diplomatic solution, but just want to pursue their own nationalist, selfish agendas against Iran,” he said the media.
