The IAEA extended Monday, May 24 by one month the "temporary solution" found with Iran to monitor its nuclear program, an extension that offers a reprieve to the major powers negotiating in Vienna to save the international agreement of 2015.
"Good news," tweeted European diplomat Enrique Mora, who heads the discussions.
"It gives us a little more leeway to achieve a result. We will resume tomorrow (Tuesday)."
Russia also "praised" this step through the voice of its ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov, just like the United States.
"On their way to Vienna for a fifth session," commented US envoy Rob Malley, still on Twitter, stressing that "a lot of work remained".
"The monitoring and verification activities will continue within the current framework for one month," said the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafaël Grossi, at the headquarters of the organization earlier. Vienna.
Iran had restricted inspectors' access to certain sites in February, and since that date has refused to provide real-time recordings of cameras and other tools in nuclear facilities.
But the IAEA at the time negotiated a compromise with Tehran to guarantee a necessary degree of surveillance, an agreement which therefore remains in force until June 24.
"Not ideal"
"The equipment continues to be in the custody of the Agency", explained Rafaël Grossi.
"The data will not be erased, this is an important aspect".
Iran has pledged to pass them on as soon as the US sanctions are lifted.
Until then, the information "remains in the possession of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (OIEA) and will not be transferred to the IAEA", warned Kazem Gharibabadi, the Iranian ambassador to the UN gendarme. nuclear, according to statements cited by the official Irna agency.
"It is not ideal", admitted the head of the IAEA.
"It is an emergency measure, (...) a palliative remedy to avoid sailing completely blind".
For his part, Kazem Gharibabadi called on the countries participating in the talks which started at the beginning of April in the Austrian capital, to seize this opportunity "to accelerate the pace.
Objective: to bring Washington back into the fold of the "Common Comprehensive Plan of Action" (JCPOA, to use its English acronym) and cancel American sanctions, in exchange for a return to strict compliance by Tehran with its nuclear obligations.
The 2015 agreement, intended to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring the atomic bomb, has indeed been dead since the withdrawal of the United States in 2018 and the reinstatement of punitive measures by Donald Trump.
Blinken's doubts
Diplomats will now focus on overcoming the lingering differences between the United States and Iran, which negotiate indirectly through the Europeans.
The other protagonists (China, Russia, France, Great Britain and Germany) reported last week of "tangible progress", believing that an agreement "was taking shape".
They evoke a "constructive" atmosphere after a start disrupted by an explosion in the Natanz enrichment plant (center), attributed by Iran to Israel.
In the process, the Islamic Republic announced to increase the uranium enrichment rate from 20% to 60%, thus approaching the 90% necessary for military use, while reaffirming that its ambitions were exclusively "peaceful".
If all hope to succeed before the presidential election of June 18 in Iran, the United States tempered Sunday optimism.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he believed the United States had "no answer yet" to "whether Iran ... is ready to do what is necessary. to comply again with the agreement ".
The talks "can easily yield results if a political decision is taken in Washington," replied Iranian foreign spokesperson Said Khatibzadeh.
With AFP
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