Western powers are lobbying other states on the UN nuclear watchdog's board to jointly pressure Iran to give the agency the answers it has long sought on uranium traces found at three undeclared sites, diplomats said on Tuesday.
At its last quarterly meeting in June the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution expressing "profound concern" that the traces remain unexplained due to insufficient cooperation by Iran, and calling on Tehran to engage with the watchdog "without delay".
The Vienna-based IAEA said there has been no progress and no engagement by Iran since then.
Rather than pass a new resolution at this week's board meeting, the four countries behind June's resolution - the United States, Britain, France and Germany - have prepared a joint statement reaffirming support for that text, hoping that many other countries will also sign onto it.
"We call upon Iran to act immediately to fulfil its legal obligations and, without delay, take up the (IAEA) Director General's offer of further engagement to clarify and resolve all outstanding safeguards issues," the text seen by Reuters says, referring to the years-long IAEA investigation.
A resolution passed by the Board of Governors carries the weight of a formal decision by the IAEA's top policy-making body that meets more than once a year. Countries banding together to issue a statement without submitting and passing a resolution are merely expressing an opinion.
The issue of the unexplained uranium particles has become an obstacle in wider talks to revive Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers since Tehran is now seeking a closure of the IAEA's investigation as part of those negotiations, Western powers said.
A French diplomatic source said Paris and its partners were consulting to see how to respond to the current deadlock and prepare the next IAEA board meeting in November.
"Today there are no active negotiations," the diplomat said, adding that Western powers had still not given up on finding a diplomatic solution.
Also, spokesperson for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Behrouz Kamalvandi dismissed recent comments from the IAEA director general about a gap in the UN nuclear watchdog’s knowledge of Tehran’s nuclear activities, saying such a claim is void of any legal basis.
Grossi pointed to the talks on the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal, saying that boosting the IAEA’s access could facilitate the achievement of broader conclusions over Iran’ nuclear program. “Frankly, the information gap is bigger and bigger and bigger,” he said.
In response, Kamalvandi said the notion that there is a gap in the IAEA’s information about Iran’s nuclear activities and that such a gap is getting bigger “lacks any legal basis”.
The AEOI spokesman explained that the deactivation of monitoring equipment in Iran complies with the agreement between the P5+1 and Iran which has been defined in the form of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
He noted that the resumption of the IAEA’s surveillance of Iran’s nuclear sites is conditional upon the removal of anti-Iran sanctions and the fulfillment of commitments by the other parties in accordance with the law passed by the Iranian Parliament on “strategic action” for lifting of the sanctions and safeguarding national interests.
