Iran Should Prepare Technical Base For IAEA Director General's Visit - Foreign Ministry

Iran Should Prepare Technical Base for IAEA Director General's Visit - Foreign Ministry

Tehran is expecting a visit by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi, but stresses the need to prepare the technical base for his arrival, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Monday

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th February, 2023) Tehran is expecting a visit by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi, but stresses the need to prepare the technical base for his arrival, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Monday.

At the end of January, Grossi announced that he was going to visit Tehran again and this could happen "in February."

"The dialogue between Iran and the IAEA is ongoing. After the completion of the preparatory process, Grossi may visit Iran in the near future. For the visit, it is necessary to prepare the technical base," Kanaani said, as quoted by Iranian news agency Fars.

The parties are expected to discuss the Iranian nuclear deal, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), among other issues. The JCPOA was negotiated between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council as well as Germany and the European Union in July 2015. In 2018, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA, saying that Iran had violated the deal by developing nuclear weapons in secret. In response, Iran suspended parts of its own obligations under the deal, demanding the US lift sanctions.

In December 2021, talks on the revival of the JCPOA resumed. However, progress on the deal was frozen by September 2022 due to a series of mass protests in the Islamic Republic, for which Tehran blamed the US and other Western countries.