09.03.2023
Weapon-grade talks
Tehran has adopted a conciliatory stance over uranium enrichment and severe punishment for those responsible for poisoning schoolgirls. Yassamine Mather reports
In the latest episode of the ongoing saga of the nuclear deal, Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, arrived in Tehran on March 3 for a meeting with Mohammad Eslami, director of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran. Before leaving, Grossi also met Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and finally president Ebrahim Raisi himself. The trip came at a time when the IAEA had been reporting that traces of uranium, enriched to 83.7% purity (near weapon-grade level), have been found in Iran.
According to Amwaj Media, a senior Iranian source has said that the joint statement issued by the IAEA and AEOI is “in the favour of the Agency” (ie, the IAEA). However, the Iranian regime believes it is likely to lead to “softer approaches in the upcoming [IAEA] Board of Governors meeting”. The same source added that, rather than the Iranian nuclear negotiating team, “This time the president’s team was involved.”1
Following his return to Vienna, Grossi told reporters that Iran had agreed to restore key monitoring activities - apparently referring to cameras that were removed from several nuclear sites in June 2022. He announced a “50% increase in inspections” at the Fordow uranium enrichment plant. Grossi claimed that these were “very concrete” promises and that further details will be discussed during technical talks.
All this came before a meeting of the IAEA in Vienna on March 6, which was expected to launch a joint US-European draft resolution censuring Iran. However, the meeting did not issue any such resolution and instead Grossi said: “We have our ideas and this will be part of the technical discussions that are going to be undertaken as a follow-up to my visit, and to the joint statement. And a technical team will be travelling to Iran very soon to do that.”
This announcement of apparent progress that went into little detail appears to have been enough to stave off a push for another resolution like one passed at the last quarterly board meeting, ordering Iran to cooperate with the investigation into the uranium traces.
Iran’s conciliatory position - probably driven in part by yet another fall in the value of the national currency - is not necessarily welcome in Washington. In fact the US state department still seems committed to regime change from above. Last month secretary of state Antony Blinken told reporters that the 2015 nuclear deal was now “on the backburner”, blaming Iran for the lack of an agreement to resurrect it. He added that the US is committed to ensuring, along with Israel, that Iran will “never acquire a nuclear weapon”.
Blinken’s statement is just as untrue as the claim by Iran’s foreign minister that negotiations are going smoothly. Contrary to what can be read on various corrupt Persian-speaking news outlets, clearly talks between the US and Iran’s Islamic Republic have been going on in Oman. Apparently the ‘exchange of prisoners’ between the two states has been high on the agenda. But, of course, amongst all the secrecy of such ‘diplomacy’, none of us are wiser as to what is really going on.
Meanwhile, inside Iran, following the mysterious poisoning of schoolgirls, and in some cases university students, in various places across the country, there are reports that “tear gas was fired” in the city of Rasht on March 5 at parents who had gathered in front of the local education department in protest at the risks faced by their children.
Iran’s ministry of health published a report from its scientific committee confirming that “some of the students were exposed to an irritant substance that is mainly inhaled”. At the same time, Mohammed Hassan Asefari, introduced as a member of the Parliamentary Fact-Finding Committee to Investigate the Cause of Student Poisoning, said that approximately 23 schools, have been affected.2 According to the semi-official new agency, ISNA, it is 50 schools.
Sections of the state media are blaming unnamed “foreign-based opposition groups” for the poisoning, but this seems unlikely, given the number of towns and provinces involved. In my view it is more likely that hard-line groups on the outer fringes of the regime are responsible - but, of course, given the number of Israeli infiltrators operating inside the Islamic Republic, one cannot rule out agent provocateurs.
On March 6 supreme leader Ali Khamenei called on the authorities to impose the most severe punishment on anyone found to be responsible for the poisoning. The Iranian chief justice then declared that perpetrators will face the Islamist charge of “corrupt on earth” - which often leads to a death sentence!