“We thank the Director-General” of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, “for his efforts, and we are disappointed that Iran missed the opportunity that was offered to it to cooperate,” a US State Department spokesman told AFP.
The Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency said, on Wednesday, that time is running out for the agency’s efforts to ensure access to a workshop for manufacturing centrifuge components in Iran to reinstall cameras, adding that the agency will soon be unable to ensure that equipment is not converted to make nuclear bombs.
Grossi made these statements a day after a visit to Tehran that he said did not lead to progress on a number of issues, the most urgent of which was the issue of access to a workshop in the Tissa Karaj complex two months after Iran promised to allow it.
The workshop is intended to manufacture parts for centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium, and was apparently sabotaged in June.
Tehran has blamed Israel for what it says was an attack that destroyed one of four International Atomic Energy Agency cameras there. Iran later removed all the cameras. Moreover, the footage captured by the destroyed camera is missing.
“We are approaching a point where I won’t be able to guarantee continuity of knowledge” of what’s going on there, Grossi told a news conference on the first day of the agency’s quarterly board of governors meeting.
This means that there is a gap in the IAEA’s monitoring of sensitive facilities, through which large quantities of materials or equipment for a covert nuclear weapons program can be transported.
In a statement to the agency’s board of governors meeting, the United States said Iran should allow the agency to reinstall the cameras in Karaj “immediately” and that the continuing crisis over the issue would complicate efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers.
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