TEHRAN— The International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors held its quarterly meeting on Monday, with the Iran nuclear file, Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station and AUKUS on its agenda.

However, the meeting of the heavily politicized institute, which should be entirely technical with its mandate, ended with further accusations against Iran.

At the beginning of the meeting, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi presented his report, which quite frankly sounds heavily politicized.

“Since 23 February 2021, the Agency’s verification and monitoring of Iran’s nuclear-related commitments under the JCPOA have been seriously affected by Iran’s decision to stop the implementation of those commitments, including its commitments under the Additional Protocol,” Grossi said.

On February 23, 2021, Iran’s then Ambassador to International Organizations in Vienna Kazem Gharibabadi tweeted, “Act of Parliament will be executed on time (23 Feb) and the IAEA has been informed today to ensure the smooth transition to a new course in due time. After all, goodwill brings about goodwill!” 

"If others do not fulfill their obligations by February 21, the government is obliged to suspend the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol," Iran’s then Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said at the time. He added, "It does not mean ending all inspections by the IAEA. All these steps are reversible if the other party changes its path and honors its obligations," alluding to the United States. However, Iran unplugged the cameras on June 9, 2022.

The director general refused to mention the fact that Iran had no legal obligation to keep the cameras on. 

“In my report, I have highlighted that, in the event of a full resumption of Iran’s implementation of its nuclear-related commitments under the JCPOA, the Agency will need to address the gap in its knowledge of what took place while our surveillance and monitoring equipment was not in operation. To do so, the Agency would need to apply additional safeguards measures and Iran would need to provide comprehensive and accurate records to the Agency. We would also need to determine the comprehensiveness and accuracy of data recorded by our surveillance equipment between 21 February 2021 and 8 June 2022. Even then, considerable challenges would remain in order to confirm the consistency with the situation prior to 21 February 2021 of Iran’s declared inventory of centrifuges and heavy water,” Grossi continued, keeping up with his trend of false accusations against Iran, a pro-nuclear disarmament and a Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signatory.

“You have received my report entitled NPT Safeguards Agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Unfortunately, since my previous report, despite the Agency’s stated readiness to engage with Iran without delay to resolve these issues, Iran has not engaged with the Agency. Consequently, there have been no developments in this reporting period and none of the outstanding issues have been resolved. Therefore, all of these safeguards issues remain outstanding,” the UN nuclear watchdog chief stated, adding, “Unless and until Iran provides technically credible explanations for the presence of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at three undeclared locations in Iran and informs the Agency of the current location(s) of the nuclear material and/or of the contaminated equipment, the Agency will not be able to confirm the correctness and completeness of Iran’s declarations under its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement.”

In line with his politically motivated statement, Grossi claimed, “Because it has not yet done so, the Agency is not in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.

Concluding his statement, Grossi said the IAEA remains ready to “re-engage with Iran without delay to resolve these matters.”

Later in the day, he talked to reporters and met with a series of questions regarding Iran. 

“We don't want to sound dramatic, but the reality is that it is extremely difficult, and we have to work very very hard and Iran will have to be very transparent in giving us information access so we can put back together a picture which will be approximate, not exact,” he said, without mentioning the countless inspections the IAEA has been conducting in Iran.

According to a report on the implementation of Safeguards in 2021, 22% of the total inspections carried out by the IAEA worldwide were related to Iran, while Iran possesses only 3% of the total equipment covered by the Agency worldwide. However, Grossi chooses not to view the intrusive IAEA inspections as Iran giving “information access.”

He then stated, “I regret this (Iran's so-called lack of cooperation). This is not new, when the Agency is demanding certain things and Iran doesn't want to or does not engage in the way one wouldn't expect, and they accuse (the IAEA) of politicizing. This is very straightforward. We found traces of uranium in places that were never declared, that were never supposed to have any nuclear activity, and we are asking questions. Explain to me why this is a political activity.”

This comes while Iran has given a satisfactory answer regarding the origins of the uranium found in these locations, but Grossi’s ears are not open to Iran’s explanations. They’d rather hear the words of the Israeli regime’s officials.

Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami said on June 7 that Iran provided “accurate” answers to questions raised by the IAEA but there is no serious will on the part of the Agency to consider Iran’s answers convincing.

In remarks to Al Jazeera, Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said the IAEA is under the influence of Iran’s enemies, particularly Israel.
Grossi expressed hope that Iran would change its view of the IAEA behaving politically and not technically. 

“I really hope Iran will start cooperating with us as soon as possible. We are ready, we want this to happen, and we are not in the business of aggravating the situation. We just want this issue to be clarified. I really hope they start looking at this issue differently,” the UN nuclear watchdog chief stated.

Acknowledging the political pressure on the IAEA, which Iran rightly believes that exists, Grossi had to come to terms with the media and confess that he himself is also under political pressure. 

“I live under political pressure. Iran, Ukraine, whatever. Political pressure is always there. The thing is what I do with that political pressure. For me, I'm not even offended by that. I think they are pushing their national interest the way they see it. I think they (Iran) should cooperate with the agency, they should be respectful to the agency,” he said. 

The key sentence is here as Grossi honestly admitted: “Political pressure is always there. The thing is what I do with that political pressure.” It is one step forward. He has come clean and admitted to political pressure being there, even though he completely denied it before. The IAEA director general is always under a lot of political pressure, but how he or she deals with it is another issue. Iran’s problem is the fact that Grossi has caved in to external pressures by the United States and the Israeli regime.

Regardless of the reasons, it seems there is no political will by the Joe Biden administration to revive the JCPOA. But Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Lapid have now found another face to collapse the talks: Rafael Mariano Grossi and his endless trend of accusations against Iran. 

Nevertheless, Iran will not remain silent. On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tehran will set its policies accordingly after the conclusion of the IAEA board meeting.

Speaking to the press, Nasser Kanaani said, “We hope that the IAEA director general will play his role professionally in this regard and pay more attention to maintaining the reputation and professional and specialized status of the agency. We expect a constructive approach from the agency and the Board of Governors members. But Iran will adjust any actions and reactions related to future developments according to the developments that will take place, and will adjust its behavior based on that.”