IAEA offers help outlining ‘concrete steps’ to enact US-Iran deal

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday it was ready to begin defining concrete steps needed to implement a U.S.-Iran deal to end the Middle East War.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a deal Wednesday to end the Middle East War, with Tehran agreeing to dilute its enriched uranium in return for large-scale economic relief.

“Now it’s for us to sit down with our American colleagues, our Iranian colleagues, and start formulating the concrete steps that will have to be taken,” IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told reporters in Geneva.

The deal aims to end the war launched by the United States and Israel on Feb. 28, prompting Iran to counterattack with missile and drone salvos across the region, effectively shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial global waterway.

Washington responded by blocking shipping to and from Iranian ports.

Under the terms of the deal released by U.S. officials, Iran will dilute its enriched uranium stocks, possibly by “down-blending on site under the supervision of the IAEA,” the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

“This is a very complex operation and it’s not a secret, so we will have to be very, very detailed,” Grossi said, adding that the outcome would depend on the political will of both sides.

“Anything can work when two sides decide that they want something to be done,” he said, adding that they were looking to his organization to tell them what is needed.

The IAEA estimates that Iran had 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, close to the level needed for a bomb, as Israel and the United States launched their first attacks last June.

Iran suspended cooperation with the IAEA then; inspectors have not seen the material since.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog’s governing board last week approved a Western-backed resolution demanding that Iran immediately provide information and access to its uranium stockpile and production facilities.

Tehran slammed that resolution as counterproductive at a time when talks were going on, and charged it was politically motivated, something Grossi vehemently denied.

“The work of the IAEA is an impartial, technical work,” he said.

“The fact that in this memorandum of understanding that has been signed, the indispensable role of the IAEA is recognized … it says it all in terms of our credibility and the indispensable role we have to play.”

The agreement is a temporary arrangement to provide time for starting detailed negotiations on the more complex issue of long-term control over Iran’s nuclear power ambitions, which Washington has long suspected of harboring a secret bomb-making program.

“I think it’s good that the memorandum is there,” Grossi said.

“Now the technical work starts.”

DAILYSABAH