IAEA chief says Iran has not given answers

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said on Monday that we need answers, people and places so we can clarify the many things that need to be clarified.

Inspectors have also found information about a large amount of equipment in locations that had not been declared as places where nuclear activity was being conducted.

The European Union mediates indirect talks between the US and Iran in an attempt to revive a nuclear deal that former US President Donald Trump exited in 2018 before imposing strict economic sanctions on Tehran.

After Becky Anderson asked Grossi whether the IAEA would end its probe without answers, he responded negatively.

Absolutely not. We want to be able to clarify these things. Iran has not given us the technically credible explanations we need to explain the origin of many traces of uranium, the presence of equipment at places, he said. Grossi said that politically we are going to stop doing our job is unacceptable for us. In June of this year, the IAEA censured Iran for traces of uranium found at three undeclared sites in 2019. Iran dismissed the IAEA motion as politicized and removed surveillance cameras at key sites in response - depriving negotiators of up-to-date information on the country's uranium enrichment program. Iranian officials have demanded that the IAEA probe be dropped before Iran rejoins the nuclear deal. Grossi said that he must have an explanation into what happened to the uranium particle traces and where they are now. Let's have an explanation. He said at that moment we will be able to have a report saying, yes, we have clarified this issue. Since Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal and launched an aggressive sanctions regime in May 2018, Tehran has enriched uranium at higher levels and at an increasing speed. A year and a half ago, the US President Joe Biden restarted talks with Iran to restore the deal with Iran, according to a diplomatic source. Progress has been slow, but there have been signs of progress in the past few weeks. In June, the UN nuclear watchdog said Iran was weeks away from having a large amount of enriched uranium, but added that it does not mean having a bomb.