In order not to jeopardise the JCPOA talks, Western diplomats decided not to press for a resolution critical of Iran at last week’s meeting of the IAEA’s Board of Governors.
However, the US has said it could convene a special meeting of the board in December if the impasse continues.
“Iran’s unwillingness to reach a relatively straightforward compromise with the IAEA reflects poorly on the outlook for the nuclear talks,” according to Henry Rome, Iran specialist at the Eurasia Group.
“Iran may calculate that its unconstrained nuclear advances … will put more pressure on the West to give ground in talks quickly,” Rome said in a note, but added that this would instead “likely have the opposite effect”.
“The situation regarding Iran’s nuclear advances is increasingly precarious,” Kelsey Davenport, an expert with the Arms Control Association, told journalists in a briefing last week.
COVERT PROGRAMME?
“While the Trump administration manufactured this crisis, Iran’s actions are really prolonging it,” Davenport said.
“Iran is acting like the United States is going to blink first but … pressure is a double-edged sword” which could kill any prospect of the 2015 deal being restored, she added.
One particular area of concern for the IAEA is a centrifuge components manufacturing unit in Karaj, near Tehran.
The IAEA has not had access to the site since its cameras there were damaged by an “act of sabotage” in June.
Iran has accused arch-foe Israel of carrying out an attack on the site.
“If there are gaps in the IAEA’s monitoring, it will drive the speculation that Iran has engaged in illicit activity, that it has a covert programme, whether there’s evidence to that or not,” Davenport pointed out, which could in turn “undermine the prospects for sustaining the deal”.
The talks will take place in the Palais Coburg hotel where the 2015 agreement was clinched.
Along with Iran, diplomats from the UK, China, Germany, Russia and France will attend.
The US will take part in the talks indirectly.
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