DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency is receiving special police protection from Austria following a threat, the Vienna-based organization acknowledged Wednesday, as its inspectors reportedly returned to Iran to monitor a fuel transfer at the country's sole nuclear power plant.
The protection for Director-General Rafael Grossi comes as tensions over Iran's nuclear program are rising again. France, Germany and the United Kingdom appear poised to declare
“snapback” — the reimplementation of United Nations sanctions on the Islamic Republic over its not allowing IAEA inspections, and other concerns. Iran has until Aug. 31 to satisfy those concerns.
Questions remain following the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June over the status of Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which could be enough for several atomic bombs if Tehran chooses to build them. Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Grossi, who plans to run for United Nations secretary-general, is being protected by an Austrian police Cobra unit.
The elite unit under the Austrian Federal Ministry of Interior mainly handles counterterrorism operations, hostage rescues and responses to mass shootings. It also engages in personal protection and the protection of Austrian foreign representations abroad. In Austria, Cobra operatives are known for protecting the president and chancellor as well as the U.S. and Israeli ambassadors.
“We can confirm that Austria provided a Cobra unit but we cannot confirm where the specific threat came from," IAEA spokesman Fredrik Dahl said.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the additional security for Grossi, an Argentine diplomat who has raised the profile of the IAEA with his trips into Ukraine after Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion and the agency's work on Iran.
Israel attacked Iran in June after the IAEA's Board of Governors voted to censure Iran over its noncooperation with the agency, the first such censure in 20 years. Iran accused the IAEA, without providing evidence, of aiding Israel and, later, the United States in its airstrikes targeting its nuclear sites.
Top Iranian officials and Iranian media called for Grossi to be arrested and put on trial if he returned to the country.
On Wednesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said IAEA inspectors were at the Bushehr nuclear power plant to watch a fuel replacement at the facility, according to a report by the state-run IRNA news agency.
The IAEA has not acknowledged the inspectors' presence.
Bushehr is run with the support of Russian technicians.
Araghchi reportedly cautioned that it didn’t represent any breakthrough on the IAEA visit to other sites. A parliamentary law blocked Iran’s government from cooperating with the IAEA until the agency offered security guarantees following the war with Israel.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a phone call on Wednesday with the foreign ministers of Germany, France and the U.K. after a series of high and low-level meetings with the Iranians over the last week.
“All reiterated their commitment to ensuring that Iran never develops or obtains a nuclear weapon,” Tommy Pigott, deputy State Department spokesperson, said in a statement.
The call between the Western leaders comes after talks in Switzerland on Tuesday between representatives of the E3 and Iran “ended without a final outcome,” a diplomat with knowledge of the meeting told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive discussions.
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, said on X after the meeting that Tehran “remains committed to diplomacy″ and that it was “high time” for the European countries “to make the right choice, and give diplomacy time and space.” That same day, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told Fox News that a team of international inspectors was back in Iran for the first time since the war with Israel in June.
The new development indicates that, despite its rhetoric, Iran is taking the looming threat of European sanctions seriously.
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Liechtenstein reported from Vienna. Associated Press writer Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran and Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___ Additional AP coverage of the nuclear landscape: https://apnews.com/projects/the-new-nuclear-landscape/
