IAEA chief to visit Iran 'soon'

Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will make an official visit to Tehran soon, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh announced.
The Iranian spokesman said that Tehran is awaiting Grossi's response to its invitation, reports Xinhua news agency.

Technical relations between Iran and the IAEA are going in a good direction, he said.

"Grossi has very close relations with both our atomic energy organization and our friends at the Iranian embassy in Vienna"

In his next trip, the IAEA chief will meet the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) as well as Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said Khatibzadeh.

During a meeting between Grossi and Mohammad Eslami, vice president and the head of the AEOI, in Tehran in September, IAEA inspectors were permitted to service the identified monitoring equipment, installed in Iran's nuclear facilities, and replace their storage media which would be kept in seals.

On February 23, Iran stopped the implementation of voluntary measures envisaged in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, in a reaction to the former US President Donald Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the agreement and re-imposition of sanctions against Tehran.


Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA are set to meet in the Austrian capital of Vienna on November 29 to resume the negotiations which were paused in June due to Iran's presidential election and the subsequent alteration in the administration.-IANS