Gulf Tensions: Acting UN Nuclear Watchdog Head To Meet Iranian Officials

The acting head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, will travel to Iran this weekend to meet high-level officials, the organisation said on Friday. “IAEA Acting Director General Cornel Feruta will travel to Tehran on Saturday for meetings with high-level Iranian officials on Sunday, 8 September,” it said in a statement.

“The visit is part of ongoing interactions between the IAEA and Iran,” the statement said, adding that this included “the IAEA’s verification and monitoring in Iran under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” the name for the 2015 deal with world powers over Iran’s nuclear programme.

President Hassan Rouhani had said Iran will announce a new step in scaling back its nuclear commitments by Thursday despite a diplomatic push for relief from US sanctions. Iran and three European countries—Britain, France and Germany—have been engaged in talks to save a 2015 nuclear deal that has been unravelling since the US withdrew from it May last year. The efforts have been led by French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been trying to convince the US to offer Iran some sort of relief from crippling sanctions it has reimposed on the Islamic republic since its pullout.

Earlier, the UN atomic watchdog had said Iran is still in violation of limitations set by the 2015 nuclear deal with major powers. Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium still exceeds the amount allowed by the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action the International Atomic Energy Agency said. It said Iran continues to enrich uranium to 4.5 per cent, above the 3.67 per cent allowed. The IAEA says Iran has continued to permit its inspectors to monitor its nuclear facilities.

Last year, US President Donald Trump pulled the US out of an international accord designed to curb Iran’s nuclear program and has reimposed sanctions on Iran in an effort to force it to renegotiate the agreement.

Tensions soared in the Gulf in June and July amid attacks on oil tankers, Iran’s downing of an unmanned US surveillance drone and after the US said it had downed an Iranian drone. Trump has said the attack against the US drone prompted him to order a military strike in response, only to call it off at the last minute.