ByNews Desk- The Cradle
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and other military figures to examine Israel's readiness for a possible attack on Iranian nuclear targets
UN nuclear chief Grossi expressed confidence that progress is being made in the level of cooperation between Iran and the IAEA but noted that challenges still remain.
A series of issues and challenges need to be resolved jointly by Iran and the IAEA so that the two sides would be able to build and strengthen trust, he added.
On Saturday, 4 March, after additional meetings, Grossi told reporters in Tehran, “Globally speaking, there are two sets of matters that are important. Clearly, there is great expectation about our joint work in order to move forward in the issues that Iran and the agency are working on, to clarify and to bring credible assurances about the nuclear program in Iran.”
“The second set of issues, which is very important, has to do with scientific, technical cooperation we are having and will continue to have with Iran,” he said, speaking alongside AEOI Eslami.
On 19 February, a report from Bloomberg alleged that IAEA nuclear inspectors detected particles of enriched Uranium in Iran’s Furdow nuclear facility at 84 percent purity, just short of the 90 percent needed to produce nuclear weapons-grade material and much more than the 60 percent level Iran announced it is producing for civilian purposes.
Iranian nuclear officials then invited IAEA head Grossi to visit Iran for the talks that took place yesterday to clarify the issue. This is Grossi’s fourth visit to Iran since assuming office in December 2019 and comes ahead of the IAEA Board of Governors meeting on Monday.
In the weeks preceding the allegations of 84 percent enrichment reported by Bloomberg, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began making preparations for possible military action against Iran. According to Israel’s Channel 12, Netanyahu met numerous times in the weeks previous to the IAEA inspectors’ allegations, holding meetings with his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, and other military figures to examine Israel’s readiness for a possible attack on Iranian nuclear targets.
In response to the enrichment allegations, Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s civilian nuclear program, stated that any detection of uranium particles enriched to that level was a momentary side effect of trying to reach a finished product of 60 percent purity, the AP reported on 24 February.
In an interview with Iranian state television Press TV, Kamalvandi dismissed what inspectors may have found as “a particle of an atom that cannot be seen even under a microscope.”
He described Iran’s uranium centrifuge cascades as producing particles at varying purity that later form a final product of 60 percent, claiming that “It doesn’t matter because the end product is what matters.” Kamalvandi suggested that allegations of Iran enriching Uranium to 84 percent were being pushed by the west for political reasons, stating that, “If we really want to enrich 20 percent more, we will announce it very easily. So it is clear that there is a conspiracy here.”
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