U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi will visit Iran next Wednesday and start consultations with Iranian officials the following day, state media reported on Sunday.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi © Mena Today
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi will visit Iran next Wednesday and start consultations with Iranian officials the following day, state media reported on Sunday.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Wednesday he might head to Iran in the coming days to discuss its disputed nuclear programme and that he expected to work cooperatively with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
Long-standing issues between Iran, the IAEA, and Western powers include Tehran barring uranium-enrichment experts from IAEA inspection teams in the country and its failure for years to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites.
Iran has also stepped up nuclear activity since 2019, after then-President Trump abandoned a 2015 deal Iran reached with world powers under which it curbed enrichment - seen by the West as a disguised effort to develop nuclear weapons capability - and restored tough U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Tehran is now enriching uranium to up to 60% fissile purity, close to the roughly 90% required for an atom bomb. It has enough higher-enriched uranium to produce about four nuclear bombs, if refined further, according to an IAEA yardstick.
Iran has long denied any nuclear bomb ambitions, saying it is enriching uranium for civilian energy uses only.
Reporting by Dubai Newsroom
Iranian aerial attacks since Wednesday have caused extensive damage to the world's largest gas plant in Qatar, targeted a refinery in Saudi Arabia, forced the UAE to shut gas facilities and set off fires at two Kuwaiti refineries.
Iran's huge Pars gas field was hit on Wednesday in a major escalation in the U.S.-Israeli war that sent oil prices shooting higher, and Tehran struck Qatar and fired missiles at Saudi Arabia after vowing attacks on oil and gas targets throughout the Gulf.
The Israeli military announced Wednesday the elimination of Hassan Ali Marwan, commander of Hezbollah's Imam Hussein Brigade, killed in an overnight airstrike in the Beirut area, just one week after his predecessor was eliminated in the same role.
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