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IAEA Chief Seeks Tougher Nuclear Checks in Iran, With Limited Leverage
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei visits the Iranian centrifuges in Tehran, Iran, June 11, 2023. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi flew to Iran on Monday hoping to bolster his agency’s oversight of Tehran’s atomic activities after various setbacks, but analysts and diplomats say he has limited leverage and must be wary of empty promises.
Then-US President Donald Trump’s decision in 2018 to ditch a landmark deal between Iran and major powers that exchanged nuclear restrictions for sanctions relief caused that accord to unravel. Iran has since accelerated its uranium enrichment and reduced cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“The level of inspection [in Iran] is not at the level we should have,” Grossi told Sky News last month.
“Given the depth and breadth of the program, we should be having additional monitoring capabilities,” said Grossi, who is due to meet officials including chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian.
Iran is enriching uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the around 90 percent of weapons grade. If that material were enriched further, it would suffice for two nuclear weapons, according to an official IAEA yardstick.
Iran has also limited the IAEA’s ability to do its job properly. It faces an array of problems, from Tehran’s continued failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites to its barring of almost all the IAEA’s top enrichment experts.
When he returned from his last Iran trip in March 2023, Grossi believed he had secured sweeping concessions from Tehran outlined in a vaguely-worded “Joint Statement.”
Little came of it, IAEA reports to member states show.
Grossi had hoped that statement would lead to re-installation of surveillance cameras and other monitoring equipment removed at Iran‘s behest in 2022. Instead, only a fraction of the cameras the IAEA wanted were re-installed.
DOUBTS
The IAEA has now lost track of parts of Iran‘s nuclear program of which the deal gave it oversight, such as the number of centrifuges — machines that enrich uranium — Iran possesses. The IAEA describes this in its reports as losing “continuity of knowledge.”
That has raised fears Tehran could set up a secret enrichment site, although there is no indication of one, diplomats say.
“The IAEA is understandably more concerned about the invisible, rather than the visible, part of Iran‘s nuclear program,” said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group.
Iranian nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami, speaking about Grossi’s visit, said on May 1 that Tehran hoped to strengthen cooperation with the IAEA, Iranian media reported.
The Biden administration’s reluctance to seriously confront Iran at the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors, which meets again in a month, has fed doubts over Grossi’s leverage.
“Is he likely to get anything? I don’t know,” a diplomat said, echoing widespread skepticism since the Joint Statement.
They added, however, that Grossi would not normally go without a clear sense of what Iran was prepared to agree to.
“Everyone knows this is a game Iran plays ahead of the Board of Governors meetings, where it routinely overpromises in order to avoid a censure and then underdelivers,” analyst Eric Brewer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative said.
“Grossi is well aware of that strategy, too. The key question is whether he can get anything concrete from Iran.”
The post IAEA Chief Seeks Tougher Nuclear Checks in Iran, With Limited Leverage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.