Iran Says IAEA Inspectors In Tehran To Resolve 'Ambiguities'

Inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog are in Tehran to resolve "ambiguities", Iranian media quoted the country's nuclear chief as saying on Wednesday.

"Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency are in Tehran and have been starting negotiations, visits and checks ... Ambiguities created by an inspector are being resolved," the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Mohammad Eslami was quoted by Tasnim news website affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard.

Last week, the UN nuclear watchdog said it was discussing the results of recent verification activities with Iran after Bloomberg News reported that the agency had detected uranium enriched to 84% purity, which is close to weapons grade.

So far, the IAEA has not reported if it has dispatched any officials to Tehran to resolve the issue with enrichment.

A spokesperson for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization denied the report on Monday and said Tehran's uranium enrichment did not exceed 60% purity.

"Through interactions and coordination, we are preventing the rise of new ambiguities and disruptions to our cooperation with the agency," Eslami was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

If the UN watchdog officially confirms the existence of 84-percent enriched uranium in Iran, the European signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA, the United Kingdom, France and Germany can initiate the agreement’s ‘trigger mechanism’ at the UN Security Council to reinstate international sanctions suspended in 2015.

Since the US withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear deal in 2018, Iran has gradually started going beyond the pact's nuclear curbs and enriching uranium to up to 60% purity in April 2021.