Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), briefs the press at the agency's headquarters in Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2021. The head of the IAEA said on Monday that a temporary arrangement reached with Iran in February that allows the agency to continue with necessary verification and monitoring activities will be extended for one month, expiring on June 24. (Dean Calma/IAEA/Handout via Xinhua)
VIENNA, May 24 (Xinhua) -- The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Monday that a temporary arrangement reached with Iran in February that allows the agency to continue with necessary verification and monitoring activities will be extended for one month, expiring on June 24.
Apart from the extension, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told reporters that the agency and Iran have agreed that information collected by the technical equipment at different locations in Tehran is going to be saved and will continue to be under the custody of the agency.
Iran stopped the implementation of the voluntary measures as envisaged in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, on Feb. 23.
On Feb. 21, the IAEA said that it had reached a temporary bilateral technical understanding with Iran, under which the IAEA could continue with its necessary verification and monitoring activities for up to three months.
Grossi said Monday that this understanding was "even more important now" because a number of things have been happening in Iran since February, in terms of the activities there that have increased "qualitatively and quantitatively."
Grossi clarified to reporters that the information collected has not been handed over yet, but he also stressed that the agency is not practically "flying blind" since they know what equipment is there and have their own calculations and estimations of what is going on.
"This is not ideal. This is like an emergency device that we came up with in order for us to continue having these monitoring activities," Grossi said.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, called Monday's agreement a "commendable step."
"It will help maintain businesslike atmosphere at the Vienna talks on #JCPOA and facilitate a successful outcome of the diplomatic efforts to restore the nuclear deal," he said on Twitter.
Since early April, the JCPOA Joint Commission, chaired by European Union official Enrique Mora and attended by representatives of China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and Iran, started to meet physically in Vienna to continue previous discussions in view of a possible return of the United States to the JCPOA and on how to ensure the full and effective implementation of the JCPOA.
The Joint Commission last week ended the fourth round of talks. The participants agreed to meet again this week.
The U.S. government under former President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018 and unilaterally re-imposed sanctions on Iran. In response, Iran gradually stopped implementing parts of its JCPOA commitments from May 2019. Enditem
