'Ship has sailed' for barred UN inspectors’ readmission to Iran - UN nuclear chief

While the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog continues to urge Iran to readmit inspectors barred from the country, its nuclear chief says the chances are now unlikely.

Speaking in New York on the sidelines of the UN’s General Assembly, Rafael Grossi said: ”Unfortunately this ship has sailed.”

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has long warned of Iran’s proximity to nuclear weapons, earlier this year saying it was “weeks, not months” away.

One year ago, Iran banned what Grossi said comprised one third of the team dedicated to monitoring the country’s nuclear program, branding them “extremists”.

At the time, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Mohammad Eslami, said that those expelled had a history of "extremist political behavior”, contradicting Grossi’s statements and saying only an "insignificant" number had been barred.

The IAEA called the move "unprecedented" and a "very serious blow" to its work.

In June, the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution calling on Iran to step up cooperation with the agency and reverse the barring of those inspectors, technically known as 'de-designation'.

This week, Grossi told Reuters, ”Until a few months ago they said they were considering and now they say they are not going to reincorporate these inspectors to the list, so unfortunately this ship has sailed.”

An IAEA report in August said that Iran had told the agency in June that its position "with regard to the de-designation of those inspectors is unchanged and this position will remain as it is”.

Grossi is now pushing to meet Iran's new president Masoud Pezeshkian next month to appeal to the new premier who is seeking to elevate Iran’s place on the world stage.

Taking a more moderate approach than his predecessors, during his his first speech at the UN, Pezeshkian, who took office in July, said: “I aim to lay a strong foundation for my country’s entry into a new era, positioning it to play an effective and constructive role in the evolving global order”.

Today, Iran is enriching uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent needed to be weapons-grade. It has enough uranium enriched to that level, which if enriched further could produce almost four nuclear bombs, according to the IAEA's August report.

Unprecedented, the IAEA says no other country has enriched uranium to that level without producing a bomb.