IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said Iranian officials were more interested in cooperating more seriously with the agency after the talks in New York.
Grossi expressed his aspiration to make real progress in the rapid resumption of discussions on the Iranian nuclear issue, noting that he intended to travel to Tehran in October to meet with President Massoud Pezeshkian.
Reuters quoted Grossi as saying: “What I see is a declared willingness to cooperate with us in a more serious way” on the part of Tehran.
The statements follow talks Grossi held with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meetings yesterday Tuesday.
Araqchi is one of the main architects of the 2015 nuclear deal that limited Iran’s ability to enrich uranium in exchange for the lifting of Western sanctions on the country.
Long-standing issues have strained relations between Iran and the U.N. agency, including Tehran’s blocking of uranium enrichment experts from joining the inspection team and its reluctance for years to explain traces of uranium found at undeclared sites.
Diplomatic efforts on the Iranian nuclear issue have stalled, largely due to the Iranian presidential elections, as well as the US presidential elections expected in November.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency said: “Of course, we now have to define the substance and the content, because we are not starting from scratch. We have gone through a relatively long process without answers to some of the questions that we have.”
Iran has accelerated the pace of work on its nuclear program since 2019 after the United States withdrew from the deal Iran struck with world powers in 2015 under former U.S. President Barack Obama.