SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
Iran lead negotiator says to meet UN nuclear watchdog chief
Tehran, Sept 24 (AFP) Sep 24, 2022
The head of Iran's atomic energy agency said Saturday he will meet next week with the chief of the UN's nuclear watchdog, as attempts to revive the country's nuclear deal stall.

"I will go to Austria to take part in the annual general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, where I will meet with Director General Rafael Grossi," Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Mohammad Eslami told state television.

The Vienna-based IAEA's annual conference takes place this year from September 26-30.

The UN watchdog said early this month it was "not in a position to provide assurance that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful".

It has been pressing for answers on the presence of nuclear material at three undeclared sites and the issue led to a resolution that criticised Iran being passed at a June meeting of the IAEA's board of governors.

The three sites represent a key sticking point in negotiations to restore a tattered 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

Those negotiations began in Vienna in April 2021 but have repeatedly stalled.

The US walked out of the original deal under then president Donald Trump in 2018 and re-imposed biting sanctions, provoking Tehran into incrementally stepping back from its nuclear commitments.

Iran has repeatedly said it wants the IAEA to drop its interest in the three sites -- a position that the nuclear watchdog says lacks credibility.

"I hope that my talks will put an end... to the false accusations about certain (nuclear) sites stemming from political pressure and psychological operations exerted against Iran," Eslami added.

In a speech at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi re-iterated his country's long held insistence that it is not seeking a nuclear weapon.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Perseverance rover cleared for long distance Mars exploration
Origami style lunar rover wheel expands to climb steep caves
How to pick the right web testing framework for your project

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Conventional photon entanglement reveals thousands of hidden topologies in high dimensions
Bilayer tin oxide layer boosts back contact perovskite solar cell efficiency and stability
Brain like chips could cut AI power demand

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
Rocket Lab advances US Space Force mission with early STP S30 launch
BlackSky accelerates Gen-3 satellite into full commercial service in three weeks
Leonardo DRS space radio completes first secure on orbit data transport test

24/7 News Coverage
Deep ocean quakes linked to Antarctic phytoplankton surges
Ocean warming drove past Greenland ice stream retreat
Insect radar survey finds vast summer air traffic above United States



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.