A delegation from the Islamic Republic of Iran is planning to meet in Vienna with the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency in hopes of rebooting talks to resolve the remaining issues in renewing the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal.
“We will send a delegation from Iran to Vienna in the coming days to start talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and we hope to resolve remaining issues based on what we have agreed in the past days,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told reporters at a news conference.
The Iranian diplomat also said he planned to speak with top European Union diplomat Joseph Borrell about the matter.
Iran’s talks with the United States, albeit indirect, remain stalled over the Iranian demand to end the IAEA’s investigation into uranium traces that were discovered at several undeclared sites in the country.
IAEA head Rafael Grossi has said several times the agency will not close its investigation until a satisfactory response is received from Iran.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic has been racing to expand its uranium enrichment with advanced centrifuges at its underground nuclear plants in Natanz and Fordow.
A confidential IAEA report seen by the Reuters news agency last month showed that Iran has continued to bring a large number of the advanced centrifuges online to enrich uranium at varying purity levels – including the 60 percent purity level that is just a short hop to military grade 90 percent purity needed to create a nuclear weapon.
By mid-October, Iran had installed seven more cascades (clusters) of the advanced centrifuges, including one cascade of IR-4 centrifuges and six IR-2m centrifuges.
Three of the most advanced centrifuges, the IR-6 machines, were installed by Iran this summer at its Natanz fuel enrichment plant, the IAEA warned in an earlier report seen by Reuters.
Tehran also informed the IAEA that it plans to install at least three more cascades of IR-2m machines at the Natanz fuel enrichment plant, in addition to the 12 cascades of advanced centrifuges already installed, according to the report.
Diplomats told the news agency Iran will have to put all of its advanced centrifuges into storage if the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers is revived.
