Agreement in Tehran: IAEA may service cameras in Iran's nuclear facilities

In the dispute over the Iranian nuclear program, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reached an agreement with Iran on IAEA monitoring technology in Iranian nuclear facilities.

"The IAEA inspectors are allowed to intervene to maintain the devices and replace the hard drives," the UN organization declared on Sunday together with Iran in Vienna.

The two sides agreed on the manner and schedule of maintenance.

The storage media with camera recordings are to be sealed and kept in Iran, the statement said.

The IAEA has had no access to real-time camera images from some Iranian nuclear facilities since February.

The organization was concerned that data could be lost if the on-site devices ran out of recording capacity.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi traveled to Tehran on Sunday for talks in order to negotiate solutions to the dispute over the monitoring of the Iranian nuclear program with the head of the Iranian nuclear energy organization, Mohammad Eslami.

He will return to Tehran "in the near future for high-level consultations," the statement said.

Negotiations stalled

Last week the IAEA accused Tehran of a lack of cooperation in the control of its nuclear program.

Iran had restricted IAEA inspectors' access to some of its nuclear facilities in February.

After that, the organization and the Iranian government negotiated a compromise to ensure at least a certain level of control.

However, that compromise expired in June after negotiations to restart the 2015 international nuclear deal stalled.

The new agreement is intended to ensure that the negotiations are not completely undermined.

The 2015 international nuclear agreement is intended to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.

Among other things, the country committed to restrict its uranium enrichment capacities and to allow regular inspections of its nuclear facilities.

In return, international sanctions against the country were lifted.

In 2018, however, under President Donald Trump, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the agreement and again imposed sanctions.

Thereafter, Tehran also gradually withdrew from the agreement.

Negotiations about a restart of the nuclear agreement, which began in April, came to a standstill after the hardliner Raisi was elected President of Iran.