UN inspectors face a “simply huge” task to check on Iran's nuclear activities if it agrees to limits on these in a “reloaded” deal with world powers, the head of the global atomic watchdog has said.
Rafael Grossi described a 12-month gap in verification of Iran's nuclear activities since it curbed access to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency last year.
He told the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) board of governors on Monday that the agency's monitoring had been “seriously affected” by this and that restoring proper inspections was essential to reviving the 2015 nuclear deal.
Talks on restoring that deal, between Iran, Britain, Germany, France, the US, China and Russia, are described by negotiators as nearing their end after a flurry of diplomacy in Vienna.
Russia's involvement threw a potential spanner into the works as it faces international isolation over its invasion of Ukraine, but a top Iranian official said on Monday that Tehran was trying to prevent this being a problem.
Iranian officials were “assessing new elements that bear on the negotiations and will accordingly seek creative ways to expedite a solution,” said Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
France, meanwhile, said any attempt by Russia to conflate the Ukraine crisis with the talks on the Iran deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), would be “blackmail and not diplomacy”. Mr Grossi held face-to-face talks with Russia's delegate in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, on Monday.
The JCPOA provided for sanctions to be lifted on Iran in exchange for limits on the country's stockpiling and enrichment of uranium and other nuclear activities. It was meant to stop Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, but Tehran stopped observing those limits after the US withdrew from the deal in 2018.
Iran has said it is enriching uranium to 60 per cent, far above the 3.67 per cent limit in the agreement and a level which western powers say has no plausible civilian use.
In another departure from the JCPOA, it discarded a so-called additional protocol to the pact which provided for UN inspectors to verify Iran's compliance with the deal.
Mr Grossi said he understood that a restored additional protocol “was and is and will be part of the JCPOA reloaded, if it comes to life".
But “it is quite clear that once there is a deal, if there is a deal, the work for the IAEA will be simply huge,” Mr Grossi told a press conference after the governors' meeting.
“We will have to reconcile lots of elements, technical elements and information that have not been subject to the stringent verification system that we used to have with the full JCPOA,” he said.
He joked that the year-long interruption in inspections reminded him of the expression associated with London Underground trains: “Mind the gap".
Monday's meeting came after Mr Grossi visited Tehran at the weekend and obtained an understanding to co-operate with the IAEA on an unresolved investigation into undeclared nuclear sites in Iran.
Although those inquiries are separate from the JCPOA talks, both Mr Grossi and the Iranians have suggested that resolving the first might make agreement on the second easier.
The IAEA chief said Iran had agreed to provide documents by March 20 answering the UN agency's questions about three undeclared sites.
These inquiries “are something that Iran has to comply with — with or without a JCPOA or any other agreement with any other countries,” Mr Grossi said. “This is our obligation.”
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
RESULTS
5pm Maiden (PA) Dh70,000 (Dirt) 1,400m
Winner AF Nashrah, Tadhg O’Shea (jockey), Ernst Oertel (trainer)
5.30pm Maiden (PA) Dh70,000 (D) 1,400m
Winner Mutaqadim, Riccardo Iacopini, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami.
6pm Maiden (PA) Dh70,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner Hameem, Jose Santiago, Abdallah Al Hammadi.
6.30pm Maiden (PA) Dh70,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner AF Almomayaz, Sandro Paiva, Ali Rashid Al Raihe.
7pm Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (D) 1,800m
Winner Dalil Al Carrere, Fernando Jara, Mohamed Daggash.
7.30pm Handicap (TB) Dh70,000 (D) 1,000m
Winner Lahmoom, Royston Ffrench, Salem bin Ghadayer.
8pm Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (D) 1,000m
Winner Jayide Al Boraq, Bernardo Pinheiro, Khalifa Al Neyadi.
Red Joan
Director: Trevor Nunn
Starring: Judi Dench, Sophie Cookson, Tereza Srbova
Rating: 3/5 stars
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
