International Atomic Energy Agency head traveling to Tehran this weekend

Three unnamed diplomats told Reuters that Grossi would be making the trip, with one claiming that the director-general – whose organization reports to the United Nations – would meet with the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization on Sunday morning.

The trip was later confirmed on Saturday by Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the UN, Kazem Gharibabadi, who announced that Grossi would be traveling to Tehran in the afternoon and would meet the head and vice president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran on Sunday. Gharibabadi also revealed that “the two sides will issue a joint Statement.”

@rafaelmgrossi will travel to Tehran this afternoon. He will meet Vice-President and head of the AEOI tomorrow. The two sides will issue a joint Statement.

The trip will take place before a meeting of the IAEA’s board of governors on Monday. The IAEA’s board of governors for 2021 includes the United States, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, China, India, Japan, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Australia, New Zealand, and many other nation states.

Last month, during a discussion with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, US President Joe Biden warned Tehran that it was “ready to turn to other options” if negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal continue to stagnate.

Iran’s secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, called Biden’s comment an “illegal threat.”

The US and its allies have repeatedly expressed concern over Iran’s continued enrichment of uranium, pointing out that it is a “serious breach” of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). However, Iran only breached its own terms of the deal after former US President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement in 2018 and introduced sanctions against Iran.

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