HELSINKI: The deaths of Iran’s president and foreign minister in a helicopter crash have caused a pause in the UN nuclear watchdog’s talks with Tehran over improving cooperation with the agency, the watchdog’s chief Rafael Grossi told Reuters on Wednesday.
“They are in a mourning period which I need to respect,” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Grossi said in Helsinki, where he spoke at a nuclear conference.
“But once this is over, we are going to be engaging again,” he said, describing it as a “temporary interruption that I hope will be over in a matter of days.”
Grossi said the IAEA was planning to continue technical discussions with Iran but they had not yet taken place due to last weekend’s helicopter crash that killed President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian.
The IAEA faces a range of challenges in Iran, from Tehran’s recent barring of many of the most experienced uranium-enrichment experts on its inspection team to Iran’s continued failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites despite a years-long IAEA investigation.
The IAEA has been trying to expand its oversight of Iran’s atomic activities while the country’s uranium-enrichment program continues to advance. Iran is enriching uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the 90 percent of weapons-grade, which no other country has done without developing nuclear weapons.
Tehran says its aims are entirely peaceful.
Iran currently has about 140 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent, Grossi said. According to an IAEA definition, that is theoretically enough, if enriched further, for three nuclear bombs. The IAEA’s last quarterly report in February said Iran had 121.5 kg, enough for two bombs.
Iran is still producing about nine kg a month of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent, Grossi said. It is also enriching to lower levels at which it has enough material for potentially more bombs.
Grossi, who two weeks ago said he wanted to start to see concrete results on improved cooperation from Iran soon, repeated that hope but said a more wide-ranging deal would require “a bit more time.”
For now, his team had not made progress on the main issues, he said.
“It is high time there is some concrete issuance and if not resolution, some clarification of what is this,” Grossi said of the uranium traces at undeclared sites.
“And I would say, confidence in many parts of the world (in Iran on the nuclear issue) is growing thinner.
Death of Iran’s president has delayed talks with UN nuclear watchdog, Grossi says
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Death of Iran’s president has delayed talks with UN nuclear watchdog, Grossi says
- The International Atomic Energy Agency faces a range of challenges in Iran
- Nuclear watchdog has been trying to expand its oversight of Iran’s atomic activities
Second drone in 24 hours found crashed in northwest Turkiye
- The authorities have pointed the finger at Russia for an unmanned aerial vehicle discovered on Friday near the city of Izmit
ISTANBUL: A drone of unknown origin has been found in Turkiye, less than a day after another unmanned aerial vehicle of suspected Russian origin crashed in the northwest, Turkish media reported on Saturday.
According to several independent television networks and the Cumhuriyet newspaper, the drone was found in an empty field near the town of Balikesir, some three hours southwest of Istanbul.
The Turkish authorities had yet to react to the news, but the Halk TV and Haberturk broadcasters reported that the drone was transported to Ankara for analysis.
Citing farmers, several media outlets reported that the crash appeared to have taken place days ago.
The incident, the third of its kind since Monday, comes after Turkiye warned both Russia and Ukraine against letting their ongoing war spill over elsewhere in the region.
The authorities have pointed the finger at Russia for an unmanned aerial vehicle discovered on Friday near the city of Izmit, around 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of the Black Sea, which has seen strikes on ships in recent weeks.
According to the Turkish interior ministry, which has opened an investigation, the drone “is believed to be of Russian-made Orlan-10 type used for reconnaissance and surveillance purposes according to initial findings.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned against the Black Sea becoming an “area of confrontation” between Russia and Ukraine, which occupy the opposite shores of the body of water to Turkiye.
