{"id":322069,"date":"2021-03-04T17:13:55","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T22:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?p=322069"},"modified":"2021-03-04T18:00:27","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T23:00:27","slug":"head-of-global-atomic-energy-agency-details-11th-hour-talks-with-tehran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2021\/03\/head-of-global-atomic-energy-agency-details-11th-hour-talks-with-tehran\/","title":{"rendered":"Head of global atomic energy agency details 11th-hour talks with Tehran"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t
\"Rafael

At a Belfer Center Zoom event, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi discussed his recent trip to Iran and his decision to pursue inspections .<\/p>

Kris Snibbe\/Harvard Staff Photographer<\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\t

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\n\t\tHead of global atomic energy agency details 11th-hour talks with Tehran\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t
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\n\t\tBrett Milano\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\tHarvard Correspondent\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t

\n\t\t\tAccord on inspections cleared roadblock to revival of Iran nuclear deal talks\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n
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Political experts agree that Iran, which is at odds with Israel and Arab allies of the U.S., is perhaps the greatest threat to stability in the Mideast, and the heat was turned up when former President Donald Trump withdrew from the international Iran nuclear containment deal in 2018.<\/p>\n

On\u00a0Feb.18 President Biden, along with European leaders, offered to restart talks with Tehran to revive the pact. But\u00a0Iranian leaders had set Feb. 23 as the day on which to sharply limit international inspections amid tightening economic sanctions. Seeking to defuse the situation,\u00a0International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi went to Iran and reached an agreement on access on\u00a0Feb. 21, two days before the deadline. This also opened the door for continued talks with the West on reviving the 2015 nuclear pact.<\/p>\n

In a Belfer Center-sponsored Zoom event on Wednesday, Grossi discussed his recent trip with David Sanger, a Kennedy School lecturer and national security correspondent for The New York Times. Grossi, who took over as IAEA director general in December 2019, spoke about his negotiations with Iranian leaders, along with the extra burdens placed on his agency by the dangers of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of a sudden the world collapses.\u201d Grossi said about the travel restrictions brought by the COVID-19 outbreak. \u201cYou cannot fly, you cannot send out your inspectors, and you don\u2019t know what is going to happen, especially when you have hot potatoes like Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet he said that ending inspections was too great a gamble. \u201cI had an important decision to make, which is, should we stop? Other international inspectorates did just that. But the first message I had was that we are not going to stop for a single minute. We are going to be present everywhere, knowing that continuity of knowledge in terms of nonproliferation is essential. That was easier said than done, because countries were closing down, and border control became impenetrable. I had to do a lot of convincing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talk focused on the Iran trip, which took place against political battles over the nuclear deal, both in Congress, where some on both sides of the aisle question the effectiveness of the agreement, and among U.S. allies in the region, who fear Iran\u2019s emergence as a nuclear power. The deal, instituted under then-President Barack Obama in 2015, placed verifiable restrictions on Tehran\u2019s nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions by Western powers.<\/p>\n

On the same day Grossi spoke at Harvard, Wendy Sherman, the former director of the Kennedy School\u2019s Center for Public Leadership and a current Biden State Department pick, was grilled on Capitol Hill over her role as chief negotiator for the deal.<\/p>\n

Grossi has expressed concerns about the potential of Iran\u2019s nuclear escalation. Sanger cited Grossi\u2019s recent statement that we are on the way to a confrontation, if not a full-blown calamity, if Iran\u2019s nuclear program is not curtailed, and Grossi outlined some of the delicate negotiation that went on during the trip.<\/p>\n\r\n

\u201cAll of a sudden the world collapses. You cannot fly, you cannot send out your inspectors, and you don\u2019t know what is going to happen, especially when you have hot potatoes like Iran.\u201d<\/p>\nRafael Grossi, general director of the International Atomic Energy Agency<\/cite><\/blockquote>\r\n\n

As he explained, in December Iran\u2019s mullahs called for new production of nuclear reactors, centrifuges, and uranium. Grossi said Iran chose Feb. 23 as the date to end its cooperation and begin new production. \u201cI felt that was a strategic, fatal date. Everyone was decrying it, but nobody was doing anything about it,\u201d Grossi said. \u201cMy concern, which I expressed to the Iranians and the rest of the world, is that if we didn\u2019t do anything, we would enter a black hole in many of these areas \u2014 what they\u2019re doing in terms of fabrication of nuclear material.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there was no definitive resolution, Grossi left Iran with an agreement that he would return after three months, during which time the IAEA would be able to monitor Iran\u2019s activities on an acceptable, but more limited level than before.<\/p>\n\r\n

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