IAEA chief says investigating Iran nuclear activities may take years

International investigations into Iran’s nuclear activities may continue for years, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, has said, noting that the next few months will be very complicated.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Grossi said even if Tehran manages to clarify the source of man-made uranium particles detected last year at several undeclared locations, the work of his inspections team will not be done.

“Additional information may come up,” Grossi said, explaining that “in non-proliferation, there is no final, definite clean bill of health.”

He stressed that Iran and Western countries need to hold direct meetings at a higher political level.

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Remarking on his scheduled visit to Iran in April, Grossi explained that the first step will be limited to technical discussions and may involve other issues thereafter.

“We have agreed with Iran to send a group of technical experts to present a number of the analytical data that we have,” he added.

Last week, the IAEA and Iran agreed to hold talks in April where technical experts will probe how decades-old uranium particles have disappeared from a warehouse in Tehran.