NEW YORK, August 27. /TASS/. The Iranian authorities may soon give permission to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to visit the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant to monitor fuel replacement, Wall Street Journal reporter Laurence Norman said.

"For now, it appears IAEA is close to agreement only to visit non-damaged sites like Bushehr and the Tehran Research Reactor, not to see enrichment sites or get a grip on the situation with the [uranium] stockpile or have the chance to check out what may be going on elsewhere," he wrote on the X social media platform.

According to Norman, although IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said on August 26 that the first group of inspectors had returned to Iran and was getting ready to resume work at Iran’s nuclear facilities, it has not happened yet.

The reporter noted that "there is every chance that Iran will spend anywhere between weeks, months or even years agreeing a full safeguards inspection regime again."

The journalist believes IAEA inspectors will return to Iran only after Tehran and Washington reach a new agreement on the Iranian nuclear program.

Iran nuclear issue

Overnight into June 13, Israel launched a military operation against Iran. Less than 24 hours later, Tehran retaliated. Nine days later, in the early hours of June 22, US jets targeted three Iranian nuclear sites, effectively entering the conflict. The following evening, Tehran carried out a missile strike on Al Udeid, the largest US military base in the region, located in Qatar. According to US officials, there were no casualties or significant damage. US President Donald Trump later announced that Israel and Iran had agreed to a complete ceasefire. The truce took effect on June 24.

The fact that the IAEA did not condemn Israeli and US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities caused a flurry of criticism from Tehran, which blamed the IAEA leadership for politicizing the agency’s activities. On July 2, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a law suspending cooperation with the IAEA. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated on July 22 that Iran did not rule out that the agency’s inspectors might return to the country in the future.

Geneva hosted talks between Iran and the European trio (the United Kingdom, Germany and France) on August 26. The meeting, which involved deputy foreign ministers, addressed issues related to lifting sanctions on Iran and resolving differences regarding the Iranian nuclear program. According to the Associated Press, the talks yielded no results, and IAEA inspections inspection for now will only concern nuclear facilities that were not impacted by US and Israeli strikes.

The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and France had agreed to set the end of August as the deadline for reaching a nuclear deal with Iran. Otherwise, the European trio plans to launch the snapback mechanism that will reinstate the UN Security Council’s sanctions on Tehran, which were lifted based on the 2015 agreements. Iran, in turn, threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the event of renewed UN Security Council sanctions. Western countries may launch the snapback mechanism as early as October 18.

In 2015, Iran, along with China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the US signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), resolving a crisis that had begun in 2002 amid Western accusations that Tehran was seeking nuclear weapons. However, in 2018, US President Donald Trump announced Washington’s withdrawal from the JCPOA and reinstated all sanctions against Iran. In response, Tehran declared in 2020 that it would scale back its commitments under the JCPOA and restrict IAEA inspectors’ access to the country’s nuclear facilities. However, the agency continued its inspections until the recent escalation of tensions between Iran and Israel.