Progress was being made in direct IAEA-Iran meetings over the past week, seeing the IAEA come to Tehran to maintain some cameras which are not currently in use, and some of which were damaged by Israeli sabotage.
Progress never lasts long without something getting in the way, however, with the IAEA then calling for new meetings over a few uranium particles detected at sites which were purported to be old, undeclared Iran nuclear sites. Iran denied the sites were ever in use, and has never been able to explain the particles.
Iran is irked that the issue keeps coming up though, with Ambassador Kazem Gharibabadi saying it is “completely unprofessional” to keep on with this, saying the IAEA is “aggrandizing insignificant old issues” at a time when more serious stuff needs to be worked on.
Gharibabadi’s statement said it didn’t make sense that “an insignificant amount of material belonging to two decades ago affects the peaceful nature of the nuclear program,” particularly when so many IAEA inspectors are being hosted in Iran.
Early suggestions had been accidental contamination of the sites by the IAEA inspectors. The claims they were ever part of the nuclear program started in Israel, and were subsequently endorsed by the US. This has meant every time the IAEA starts getting along with Iran, they get pressured to bring the particles up again.
Expel those spy inspectors…!