New Iran nuclear deal must reflect today’s realities: IAEA chief – Türkiye Today

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said any new nuclear agreement with Iran would have to be different from the 2015 deal, telling Al Jazeera in an interview that the situation has changed because of the recent conflict and Iran’s major advances in nuclear technology.
Grossi said the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the JCPOA, reflected the conditions of its time, but could no longer serve as the same model for a future agreement.
The 2015 Iran nuclear deal was reached between Iran, the U.S., the U.K., Russia, France, China, Germany and the EU in July 2015.
“Today is a completely different situation that we have,” Grossi said.
Grossi said any new agreement, if reached, would come in a post-war environment and would need to account for physical damage caused by the recent conflict.
“First of all, very important this is a post-war agreement, if it comes to that, which we have to bear in mind against the backdrop of physical damage,” he said.
He said this makes the current situation different from the conditions that shaped the Obama-era nuclear deal.
Grossi said Iran’s nuclear program has also changed significantly since the JCPOA was negotiated.
“Iran at the same time has grown enormously in its technologies and capacities,” he said.
Grossi said the old parameters used for the JCPOA no longer fit Iran’s current nuclear capabilities.
He said the 2015 deal was based on a certain number of centrifuges, the machines used to enrich uranium by spinning at high speeds.
At the time, he said, Iran’s centrifuge technology was older.
“Well it was an old technology. Now they have performant, very modern, very fast machines,” Grossi said.
He said Iran may now need far fewer machines than before because of the speed and performance of its newer centrifuges.
“So you may need much less than in the past,” Grossi said.
Grossi said the JCPOA belonged to its own period, but a future agreement would need to be designed for the current situation.
“So JCPOA was what it was. Now you need something different,” he said.

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