Iran gives vague assurances to UN agency over nuclear enrichment to avoid measures | | AW

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

63% : That raised concerns that Iran was speeding up its enrichment.
57% : The joint statement issued Saturday said Iran "expressed its readiness to continue its cooperation and provide further information and access to address the outstanding safeguards issues."
56% : This is very concrete," Grossi said of the assurances he received in Tehran.
53% : IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other top officials in Tehran earlier Saturday.
52% : International Atomic Energy Organization, IAEA, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi listens to a question during a joint press conference with head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Mohammad Eslami in Tehran, March 4, 2023.
52% : His first visit to Iran in a year came days after the IAEA reported that uranium particles enriched up to 83.7% -- just short of weapons-grade -- were found in Iran's underground Fordo nuclear site.
51% :Iran has sought to portray any highly enriched uranium particles as a minor byproduct of enriching uranium to 60% purity, which it has been doing openly for some time.
49% : The head of the UN's nuclear agency said Saturday that Iran pledged to restore cameras and other monitoring equipment at its nuclear sites and to allow more inspections at a facility where particles of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade were recently detected.
46% : The IAEA report said inspectors in January found that two cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at Fordo were configured in a way "substantially different" to what Iran had previously declared.
46% : Iran has long denied ever seeking nuclear weapons and continues to insist that its nuclear program is entirely for peaceful purposes.
45% : The agency's 35-member board of governors censured Iran twice last year for failing to fully cooperate.
43% : The chief of Iran's nuclear programme, Mohammad Eslami, acknowledged the findings of the IAEA report at a news conference with Grossi in Tehran but said their "ambiguity" had been resolved.
43% : A stockpile of material enriched to 90%, the level needed for weapons, could quickly be used to produce an atomic bomb, if Iran chooses.
42% : Efforts by the Biden administration, European countries and Iran to negotiate a return to the deal reached an impasse last summer.
41% : Tehran seemed to be trying to avoid new measures by the IAEA.
41% :Western officials have suggested the so-called safeguards probe of the three sites could confirm longstanding suspicions that Iran had a nuclear weapons program up until 2003.
39% : The confidential quarterly report by the nuclear watchdog, which was distributed to member nations Tuesday, came as tensions were already high amid months of anti-government protests in Iran and Western anger at its export of attack drones to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
37% :Nonproliferation experts say Tehran has no civilian use for uranium enriched to even 60%.
35% : But a joint statement issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran's nuclear body only gave vague assurances that Tehran would address longstanding complaints about the access it gives the watchdog's inspectors to its disputed nuclear programme.
34% : The US unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018, reimposing crushing sanctions on Iran, which then began openly breaching the deal's restrictions.
34% : Over the past four years, the IAEA has accused Iran of stonewalling its investigation into traces of processed uranium found at three undeclared sites in the country.

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