Iran and the UN nuclear agency are still discussing how to implement a 2023 deal on inspections

Iran and the United Nations' nuclear watchdog are still negotiating over how to implement a deal struck last year to expand inspections of the Islamic Republic's rapidly advancing atomic program, officials said Tuesday.

The acknowledgment by the International Atomic Energy Agency's leader Rafael Mariano Grossi shows the challenges his inspectors face, years after the collapse of Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers and the wider tensions gripping the Mideast over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Grossi has already warned that Tehran has enough uranium enriched to near-weapons-grade levels to make “several” nuclear bombs if it chose to do so. He has acknowledged the agency cannot guarantee that none of Iran’s centrifuges may have been peeled away for clandestine enrichment.

«What we are looking at is concrete measures that could make this operational,» Grossi said.

Grossi spoke to journalists at a news conference in the city of Isfahan, alongside Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. While both men said there would be no immediate new deal struck during the visit, they pointed to a March 2023 joint statement as a path forward for cooperation between the IAEA and Iran.

That 2023 statement included a pledge by Iran to resolve issues around sites where inspectors have questions about possible undeclared nuclear activity, and to allow the IAEA to “implement further appropriate verification and monitoring activities.”

Grossi and Eslami offered few specifics from the ongoing discussions, though Grossi said technical teams from the two sides were talking over specifics.

“The important point is that Mr. Grossi takes the necessary actions to settle the problems that are mainly political,”