TEHRAN — International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi met Iran’s top diplomat Thursday as he began crunch nuclear talks in Tehran weeks before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
During his first term in the White House from 2017 to 2021, Trump was the architect of a policy called “maximum pressure” which reimposed sweeping US economic sanctions that had been lifted under a landmark 2015 nuclear deal.
Grossi, who arrived in Tehran late Wednesday, is expected “to negotiate with the country’s top nuclear and political officials,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported.
Grossi described his meeting with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as “indispensable” in a post on X. Araghchi was Iran’s chief negotiator in the talks that led to the 2015 deal.
For his part, Araghchi said the meeting was “important & straightforward” and renewed Iran’s commitment to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“We agreed to proceed with courage and good will. Iran has never left the negotiation table on its peaceful nuclear programme,” he said in his post.
Araghchi said Iran was “willing to negotiate” based on the “national interest” and “inalienable rights,” but was not “ready to negotiate under pressure and intimidation”.
Grossi also met the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Mohammad Eslami, the Tasnim news agency reported.
Later, the IAEA chief is expected to meet President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Grossi’s visit is his second to Tehran this year but his first since Trump’s re-election.
In 2018, Trump unilaterally abandoned the 2015 deal that gave Iran relief from international sanctions in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear programme designed to prevent it developing a weapons capability, an ambition it has always denied.
The following year, Iran started to gradually roll back its commitments under the deal, which barred it from enriching uranium to above 3.65 percent.
The IAEA says Iran has significantly expanded its stocks of uranium enriched to 60 percent, a level that has triggered international alarm as it is much closer to the 90 percent level needed for a nuclear warhead.
Grossi “will do what he can to prevent the situation going from bad to worse” given the significant differences between Tehran and Western capitals, said Ali Vaez, an Iran specialist at the Crisis Group, a US-based think tank.
Iran has blamed the incoming US president for the standoff.
