UN nuclear chief says Iran to grant ‘less access’ to program

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran will begin to offer United Nations inspectors “less access” to its nuclear program as part of its pressure campaign on the West, though investigators will still be able to monitor Tehran’s work, the U.N. atomic watchdog’s chief said Sunday. And the parliament adopted legislation — whether we like it or not.” Zarif’s comments marked the highest-level acknowledgement yet of what Iran planned to do when it stopped following the so-called “Additional Protocol,” a confidential agreement between Tehran and the IAEA reached as part of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal. The agency also said then that it had placed “2,000 tamper-proof seals on nuclear material and equipment.” In his interview, Zarif said authorities would be “required by law not to provide the tapes of those cameras.” It wasn’t immediately clear if that also meant the cameras would be turned off entirely as Zarif called that a “technical decision, that’s not a political decision.” “The IAEA certainly will not get footage from those cameras,” Zarif said. “He is prepared to go to the table to talk to the Iranians about how we get strict constraints back on their nuclear program,” Sullivan told CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “That offer still stands, because we believe diplomacy is the best way to do it.” On U.S. citizens being held by Iran, Sullivan added: “We have begun to communicate with the Iranians on this issue.” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told state TV late Sunday night responding to Sullivan that “there are no direct talks between Iran and the U.S. in any field.” However, Khatibzadeh said the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which has looked out for American interests in the decades since the 1979 hostage crisis, has passed messages between the countries on prisoner issues since Biden took office.