Iran risks triggering a new crisis if it does not cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog after failing to answer its questions about past nuclear activities at three sites and denying it access to two of them, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi said on Tuesday.
Grossi, who took up his post in December last year, spoke in an interview hours after the IAEA released a report admonishing Iran.
“We have been requesting some information and access from Iran, but we haven’t been getting the information we require,” Grossi said. “We have insisted and despite all our efforts we have not been able to get that, so the situation requires on my part such a step because what this means is that Iran is curtailing the ability of the agency to do its work.”
Photo: Reuters
Reuters on Monday reported that the IAEA planned to issue a second report in addition to its regular quarterly update on Iran’s nuclear activities, rebuking Iran for less than full cooperation in general and for failing to grant UN inspectors access to one or more sites of interest.
Speaking after meetings in Paris, including with French President Emmanuel Macron, Grossi said the issue was serious and he hoped that Iran would return to full compliance after the IAEA board of governors meets in Vienna next week.
“I sincerely hope that Iran will listen to us and listen to the voice of the international community at the board of governors, and assess that it is in their own interest to cooperate with us,” he said. “We don’t have a political agenda; we simply are requesting them to comply with their obligations.”
“We will be walking towards a crisis [if not],” he said.
The extraordinary second report delved into the IAEA’s open questions and Iran’s denial of access to sites which diplomats say are believed to have been active in the early 2000s.
“I judged it necessary to produce a second report because I thought the situation is serious enough to merit such a move on my part,” Grossi said.
What exactly is thought to have happened at the three sites, none of which the IAEA has visited before, is unclear and in Tuesday’s report Iran said it had informed the IAEA that it would not recognize any allegation on past activities and did not consider itself obliged to respond.
“These sites have been judged by our technical experts as indispensable for us to visit to provide the necessary guarantees that nothing is happening which shouldn’t be happening there,” Grossi said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese