Iran says talks with IAEA will be ’complicated’ ahead of agency’s planned visit

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TEHRAN — Talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency will be “technical” and “complicated,” the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Ministry said Monday ahead of a visit by the nuclear watchdog for the first time since Tehran cut ties with the organization last month.

Relations between the two soured after a 12-day air war was waged by Israel and the U.S in June, which saw key Iranian nuclear facilities bombed. The IAEA board said on June 12 Iran had breached its non-proliferation obligations, a day before Israel’s airstrikes over Iran that sparked the war.

Later on Monday, Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency that Massimo Aparo, the IAEA’s deputy director general and head of safeguards, had left Iran. Aparo met with an Iranian delegation, which included officials from the foreign ministry and the atomic energy organization, to discuss “the method of interaction between the agency and Iran.”

Gharibabadi said they decided to continue consultations in the future, without providing further details.

The IAEA did not immediately issue a statement about the visit by the agency’s deputy head, which will not include any planned access to Iranian nuclear sites.

Esmail Baghaei, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told reporters there could be a meeting with Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi, “but it is a bit soon to predict what the talks will result since these are technical talks, complicated talks.”

Baghaei also criticized the IAEA’s “unique situation” during the June war with Israel.

“Peaceful facilities of a country that was under 24-hour monitoring were the target of strikes and the agency refrained from showing a wise and rational reaction and did not condemn it as it was required,” he said.

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Aragchi had previously said that co-operation with the agency, which will now require approval by Iran’s highest security body, the Supreme National Security Council, would be about redefining how both sides co-operate. The decision will likely further limit inspectors’ ability to track Tehran’s program that had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on July 3 ordered the country to suspend its co-operation with the IAEA, after the U.S. bombed three major Iranian nuclear sites as Israel waged an air war with Iran, killing nearly 1,100 people, including many military commanders. Retaliatory Iranian strikes killed 28 in Israel.

Iran has had limited IAEA inspections in the past as a pressure tactic in negotiating with the West, and it is unclear how soon talks between Tehran and Washington for a deal over its nuclear program will resume.

U.S. intelligence agencies and the IAEA had assessed Iran last had an organized nuclear weapons program in 2003, though Tehran had been enriching uranium up to 60% — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.