International Atomic Energy Agency

Subterms

    Latest story

    163 Shares159 Views

    Iran Suggests Pausing High Levels of Uranium Enrichment to Avoid Censure, Monitor Says

    by

    Iran has raised the possibility it would stop expanding its stockpile of uranium enriched to a purity of 60 percent — very close to the level needed for a weapon, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog says.Iran is dangling the possibility of halting its production of near-bomb-grade nuclear fuel in exchange for avoiding formal condemnation for its years of blocking some United Nations nuclear inspectors from doing their jobs, according to atomic experts and a report from the U.N.’s nuclear monitoring arm.The report, dated Tuesday and circulating privately among member states of the monitor — the International Atomic Energy Agency — says that during meetings the agency held in Tehran on Nov. 14, Iran raised the possibility that it would stop expanding its stockpile of uranium enriched to a purity of 60 percent, very close to the level needed for a weapon.On Nov. 16, the report added, the monitoring agency verified that Iran had “begun implementation of preparatory measures aimed at stopping the increase of its stockpile” at its two major enrichment sites.David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation, said Iran’s move came amid its “continued lack of cooperation” with U.N. inspectors.“Now it’s offering to cap its production in exchange for the I.A.E.A. board abandoning its push for a resolution” that would condemn Iran’s lack of cooperation, he said.The agency’s board of member states is meeting from Wednesday to Friday and will take up the resolution in a vote. If the measure passes, it would lead to a formal, detailed report that could ultimately send the issue to the U.N. Security Council for possible retaliatory measures against Iran.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Rafael Grossi of the IAEA Acts as the West’s Mediator With Putin and Iran

      by

      Rafael Grossi slipped into Moscow a few weeks ago to meet quietly with the man most Westerners never engage with these days: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Mr. Grossi is the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, and his purpose was to warn Mr. Putin about the dangers of moving too fast to restart the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russian troops since soon after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.But as the two men talked, the conversation veered off into Mr. Putin’s declarations that he was open to a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine — but only if President Volodymyr Zelensky was prepared to give up nearly 20 percent of his country.A few weeks later, Mr. Grossi, an Argentine with a taste for Italian suits, was in Tehran, this time talking to the country’s foreign minister and the head of its civilian nuclear program. At a moment when senior Iranian officials are hinting that new confrontations with Israel may lead them to build a bomb, the Iranians signaled that they, too, were open to a negotiation — suspecting, just as Mr. Putin did, that Mr. Grossi would soon be reporting details of his conversation to the White House.In an era of new nuclear fears, Mr. Grossi suddenly finds himself at the center of two of the world’s most critical geopolitical standoffs. In Ukraine, one of the six nuclear reactors in the line of fire on the Dnipro River could be hit by artillery and spew radiation. And Iran is on the threshold of becoming a nuclear-armed state.“I am an inspector, not a mediator,” Mr. Grossi said in an interview this week. “But maybe, in some way, I can be useful around the edges.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More