IAEA Allowed Inspecting A Suspected Nuclear Site In Iran After A Long Stand-off

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says that its officials have finally inspected one of the two sites that Iran granted the agency access to last week.

In its quarterly report released on Friday, September 4, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said that environmental samples had been taken from the site and will be tested later to see if traces of uranium were found at the location, which the IAEA did not name in its report.

According to the report, IAEA inspectors will visit the second location “later in September 2020 on a date already agreed with Iran, to take environmental samples.”

In a joint statement on Wednesday, August 26, after a two-day visit of the IAEA Director-General to Iran, the two sides announced an agreement over settling inspection issues.

Under the agreement, Iran voluntarily allowed the IAEA to inspect its nuclear activities at “two suspected locations” where production may have occurred. Iran also granted the IAEA permission to facilitate the nuclear verification procedure at the sites, one located “around Shahreza” in Isfahan province and another in the “suburbs of Tehran,” and enhance bilateral cooperation overall.

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The had been asking for months to inspect the two locations suspected of being used in early 2000 for nuclear activities that Iran previously did not report.International news agencies, including Reuters, noted that previous IAEA reports speculated that the two sites were probably razed to the ground in 2003 and 2004 to destroy uranium traces.On June 19, the IAEA’s Board of Governors in Vienna adopted a resolution proposed by Britain, France, and Germany to reprimand Iran’s nuclear activities and its insistence on barring the  inspectors from visiting the suspected sites. The resolution was the first of its kind in the past eight years.The three European parties in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)’s 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran submitted a draft resolution to the IAEA Board of Governors demanding that Iran grant IAEA inspectors access to the two suspected sites and cooperate fully with the UN nuclear watchdog.