Iran is willing to negotiate with the UN nuclear agency, but not 'under pressure' Political Affairs

Iran is willing to negotiate with the United Nations atomic agency about its compliance with safeguards rules on its nuclear program but will not do so “under pressure and intimidation”, a senior official said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi in Tehran on Thursday, describing their cooperation as “important and direct” at the X site.

Grossi told Iranian officials that the UN watchdog wants to see “tangible, tangible and visible results” during talks on Iran's nuclear program.

After the meeting, Araghchi – who was Iran's main negotiator in the negotiations that led to the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers – said his country “has never left the negotiating table regarding its peaceful” nuclear program.

“The ball is in the court of the EU/E3,” Araghchi wrote, referring to the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

Iran was “willing to negotiate based on our national interests and our inviolable rights, but it is NOT ready to negotiate under pressure and intimidation”, he wrote in X.

In a joint press conference with Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Grossi said that given the “critical situation in the region”, he was determined to make the talks “successful”.

The IAEA chief's visit comes a few weeks before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.

During Trump's presidency, the US pulled out of the 2015 deal that saw Iran scale back its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against its economy.

Eslami said he was looking forward to “constructive and successful discussions under the existing conditions”.

But he warned of “immediate countermeasures” against any decision by the IAEA's board of governors that interferes with Iran's nuclear program.

Grossi said, “The fact that international tensions and regional tensions exist – this shows that the space for dialogue and communication is not getting bigger, it's getting smaller.”

The IAEA chief is expected to meet with President Masoud Pezeshkian, who told the UN General Assembly in September that he wants to open a “constructive” chapter in his country's international relations and is “ready to negotiate” with the West about Iran's nuclear program.

Ahead of his trip, Grossi urged Iran's leaders to take steps to resolve long-standing issues with his agency, including encouraging more cooperative monitoring of nuclear sites and the explanation of traces of uranium found in suspected undeclared sites.

But little has come of his efforts and the return of Trump, who is widely expected to restore a policy of heavy pressure on Iran, Grossi's trip should provide clues as to how Iran wants to proceed in the coming months.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera's Resul Serdar said that while much was at stake during Grossi's visit, the chances of success were “very low”.

“There are huge sticking points” between the two groups, he said, adding that “mistrust” is also important.

Apart from issues related to monitoring, the IAEA also accuses Iran of refusing to authorize UN nuclear inspectors, Serdar reported.

“Therefore, Iran accuses the IAEA of politicizing the program and behaving as if it is acting on behalf of third parties, especially on behalf of Israel,” he added. “Today we don't expect this mistrust to be overcome.”

Iran's uranium enrichment activity has been seen by the West as a covert attempt to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Tehran is now enriching uranium to 60 percent fissile purity, close to the 90 percent required to detonate a nuclear bomb.

But Iran has long denied nuclear bomb ambitions, saying it is enriching uranium only for civilian energy use.

Grossi said that while Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon, it does have a lot of enriched uranium that could eventually be used to make one.