IAEA Director General Urges Iran to Resolve Issues Related to Four Undeclared Locations
Technical discussions between the IAEA and Iran have not yielded the expected results, and the lack of progress in clarifying the Agency’s questions concerning the correctness and completeness of Iran’s safeguards declarations seriously affects the ability of the IAEA to provide assurance of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said today in his opening statement to the quarterly session of the IAEA Board of Governors.
“Iran has provided no new information in relation to one location, has not answered any of the Agency’s questions nor provided any information in relation to two other locations, and provided a written statement on a fourth location without any substantiating documentation,” he stated.
In his statement to the Board, a range of topics were covered, including the organization’s wider nuclear verification work, its continued assistance to Member States battling the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Agency’s work related to nuclear energy.
Nuclear verification
Since February, verification and monitoring activities have been affected as a result of Iran’s decision to stop the implementation of its nuclear-related commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the Additional Protocol, which gives broader access to IAEA inspectors throughout a country. “The presence of multiple uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at three locations in Iran not declared to the Agency, as well as the presence of isotopically altered particles at one of these locations, is a clear indication that nuclear material and/or equipment contaminated by nuclear material has been present at these locations,” Mr Grossi stated. “I reiterate the requirement for Iran to clarify and resolve these issues without further delay by providing information, documentation and answers to the Agency’s questions.”
Mr Grossi also called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), also called North Korea, to comply with its obligations under Security Council resolutions and to cooperate with the IAEA. Since the Board meeting in March, Mr Grossi noted that the duration of the continuous operation of a steam plant serving a radiochemical laboratory is consistent with the time required for a reprocessing campaign. The IAEA’s inspectors were expelled from North Korea in 2009 and continue to monitor the country’s nuclear programme using open source information, including satellite imagery.
Despite travel restrictions due to COVID-19, the IAEA performed all of its most critical verification work in 2020, and the number of in-field verification activities conducted was comparable to previous years. Mr Grossi reminded the Board that “inspections cannot be stopped and that public health measures are not incompatible with this indispensable activity.”
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