New IAEA chief Rafael Grossi is eager to put his stamp on the agency taking a more aggressive stance, and to that end is preparing to issue a statement rebuking Iran for failing to provide the IAEA unconditional access to a new site.
The site is considered a very long shot to be anything. It was presented by Israel as a “secret atomic warehouse” in 2018, and the IAEA was already given one visit to the site in 2019.
Israel appears to be the sole source of this allegation, and Iran says the site is a carpet-cleaning facility. It’s lose-lose for Iran to provide more access to the site, as either the IAEA will find something, or they won’t, and hawks will accuse Iran of a cover-up because nothing is there.
That was what came out of the 2019 visit, as the IAEA claimed to have found a trivial amount of unprocessed uranium. Iran couldn’t explain this, and while it wasn’t evidence of anything, it was used as an excuse to keep the inquiry going.
This belongs in the hypocrisy column. The unraveling of the agreement was started by the US at the behest of Israel.