The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said on Tuesday 24 January that the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) was no longer working.
“The agreement is an empty shell, no one has said it is dead and buried, but no obligations are being followed”, “the degree of commitment and implementation is zero”, Grossi summarised at a hearing before the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs. He noted that Iran had warned it would not abide by any nuclear restrictions due to the withdrawal of the US from the agreement in 2018.
According to the Director General, taking into account both the status of the agreement and Iran’s non-compliance with its IAEA obligations, “the situation is neither very encouraging nor promising”.
Asked whether Iran was close to having a nuclear weapon, the Director General explained that one had to be “extremely cautious”. “One thing is true: Iran has amassed enough nuclear material for several nuclear weapons, not just one. The Iranians have 70 kg of uranium enriched to 60%, 1000 kg to 20% and more. The numbers are sufficient, but that does not mean that Iran has a nuclear weapon”, he said.
Mr Grossi announced that he might travel to Tehran in February for discussions with the authorities.
Creating a protection zone in Zaporizhzhia
Having just returned from Ukraine, the Director General also looked again at the situation in the country, calling for the establishment of a protection zone around the Zaporizhzhia plant while fighting is taking place nearby.
The Ukrainian site, which is in Russian-controlled territory, is managed by the Russians, but the operation is guaranteed by the Ukrainians. The IAEA has set up a support mission. “I don’t know for how long we will be able to avoid a nuclear accident”, Grossi warned, justifying the protection zone as “a kind of bubble, a zone excluded from any military where the principle is not to fire on the site or place ammunition in the zone”.
He said that the negotiations, which had been going on for some time, were still ongoing. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)