Iran has agreed to allow in an International Atomic Energy Agency technical team in the coming days to discuss restoring camera surveillance at nuclear sites, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Wednesday, calling it an encouraging signal of Iran’s attitude toward nuclear talks with the United States. Rafael Mariano Grossi, speaking to reporters in Washington after meeting with Iranian officials in Tehran last week, joined the American and Iranian sides in projecting optimism after a second round of negotiations Saturday over the Islamic Republic’s rapidly advancing nuclear program. Technical-level talks were expected this week. Iranian leaders were engaged “with a sense of trying to get to an agreement,” Grossi said. “That is my impression.” The U.S. is looking to ensure Iran doesn’t develop nuclear weapons, while Iran wants the easing of sanctions that have damaged its economy. After President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of an Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in his first term, it responded by curtailing access and monitoring by the IAEA at nuclear sites. Since then, Iran has pressed ahead on enriching and stockpiling uranium that is closer to weapons-grade levels, the agency says. Iranian Supreme Ali Khamenei long has refrained from ordering the final steps needed to make nuclear bombs. Iranian leaders say their nuclear sites are for civilian purposes only. Iran resumed talks with the months-old second Trump administration, in the face of threatened Israeli or U.S. strikes aimed at disabling Iran’s nuclear program by force. Grossi said Iranian officials during his visit there last week agreed to allow in an IAEA technical team to discuss resuming access to and monitoring of nuclear sites, among other issues. While that move was not directly linked to the U.S. talks, he called it an encouraging sign of Iran’s willingness to reach terms in a potential deal. The IAEA is not playing a direct role in the talks, and Trump’s Republican administration has not asked it to, Grossi told reporters. That Iran and the U.S. sought to resolve the issue peacefully was more important than whether U.N. nuclear monitors take part, he said. But when it comes to ensuring Iranian compliance with any deal, he said, “this will have to be verified by the IAEA.” “I cannot imagine how you could put … a corps of invented international or national inspectors to inspect Iran” without having the agency’s decades of expertise, he said. “I think it would be problematic and strange.” (AP)

Negotiations between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program will move Wednesday to what’s known as the “expert level” — a sign analysts say shows that the talks are moving forward rapidly. However, experts not involved in the talks who spoke with The Associated Press warn that this doesn’t necessarily signal a deal is imminent. Instead, it means that the talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff haven’t broken down at what likely is the top-level trade — Tehran limiting its atomic program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. “Agreeing to technical talks suggests both sides are expressing pragmatic, realistic objectives for the negotiations and want to explore the details,” said Kelsey Davenport, the director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association who long has studied Iran’s nuclear program. “If Witkoff was making maximalist demands during his talks with Araghchi, such as dismantlement of the enrichment program, Iran would have no incentive to meet at the technical level.” That technical level, however, remains filled with possible landmines. Just how much enrichment by Iran would be comfortable for the United States? What about Tehran’s ballistic missile program, which U.S. President Donald Trump first cited in pulling America unilaterally out of the accord in 2018? Which sanctions could be lifted and which would be remain in place on the Islamic Republic? “The most important determinant of expert talks’ value lies in whether there is a political commitment to do something and experts just need to figure out what,” said Richard Nephew, an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who worked on Iran sanctions while at the U.S. State Department during negotiations over what became the 2015 nuclear deal. “If the experts also have to discuss big concepts, without political agreement, it can just result in spun wheels.” Experts and the 2015 nuclear deal The 2015 nuclear deal saw senior experts involved in both sides of the deal. For the U.S. under President Barack Obama, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz reached an understanding working with Ali Akbar Salehi, then the leader of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Both men’s technical background proved key to nailing down the specifics of the deal. Under the 2015 agreement, Iran agreed to enrich uranium only to 3.67% purity and keep a stockpile of only 300 kilograms (661 pounds). Today, Iran enriches some uranium up to 60% purity — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. The last report by the International Atomic Energy Agency put Iran’s overall uranium stockpile in February at 8,294.4 kilograms (18,286 pounds). The deal also limited the types of centrifuges Iran could spin, further slowing Tehran’s ability to rush for a bomb, if it chose to do so. It also set out the provisions of how and when sanctions would be lifted, as well as time limits for the accord itself. Reaching limits, relief and timelines require the knowledge of experts, analysts say. “A nonproliferation agreement is meaningless if it cannot be effectively implemented and verified,” Davenport said. “The United States needs a strong technical team to negotiate the detailed restrictions and intrusive monitoring that will be necessary to ensure any move by Iran toward nuclear weapons is quickly detected and there is sufficient time to respond.” It remains unclear who the two

Iran and the United States plan to meet over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program again next week, after both sides said they made progress in their talks Saturday in Rome. A U.S. official confirmed that at a point during the negotiations in Rome, President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke face to face. Before they meet again in Oman on April 26, Araghchi said technical-level talks would be held in the coming days. That experts would be discussing details of a possible deal suggests movement in the talks and comes as Trump has pushed for a rapid agreement while threatening military action against Iran. The sides “made very good progress in our direct and indirect discussions,” according to a senior Trump administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private diplomatic meeting. In a post on X, Araghchi similarly said they made “progress on principles and objectives of a possible deal.” He added, however, that “optimism may be warranted but only with a great deal of caution.” He told Iranian state television earlier that “I hope that we will be in a better position after the technical talks.” While the U.S. said both direct and indirect discussions were held, Iranian officials described them as indirect, like those last weekend in Muscat, Oman, with Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi shuttling between them in different rooms. “These talks are gaining momentum and now even the unlikely is possible,” al-Busaidi said on X. In a separate post, Oman’s Foreign Ministry said the sides agreed to keep talking to seek a deal that ensures Iran is “completely free of nuclear weapons and sanctions, and maintaining its ability to develop peaceful nuclear energy.” That talks are even happening represents a historic moment, given the decades of enmity between the two countries since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis. Trump, in his first term, unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018, setting off years of attacks and negotiations that failed to restore the accord that drastically limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. At risk is a possible American or Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, or the Iranians following through on their threats to pursue an atomic weapon. Meanwhile, tensions in the Middle East have spiked over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza and after U.S. airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels killed more than 70 people and wounded dozens more. “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon,” Trump said Friday. “I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.” Before the Iran talks started, Witkoff met in Rome with Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to a person familiar with the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity to share details that were not made public. The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency would likely be key in verifying compliance by Iran should a deal be reached, as it did with the 2015 accord Iran reached with world powers. In a flurry of gatherings, Grossi also met with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who sat down with Araghchi before the U.S.-Iran talks. A diplomatic deal “is built patiently, day after day,

The Treasury Department imposed sanctions Wednesday on a Chinese refinery accused of purchasing more than $1 billion worth of Iranian oil, saying the proceeds help finance both Tehran’s government and Iran’s support for militant groups. The sanctioned refinery in China’s Shandong province received dozens of shipments of crude oil from Iran worth more than $1 billion, the Trump administration said. Some of the petroleum came from a front company for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, U.S. authorities said. Officials also announced that several companies and vessels involved in the shipments were added to the sanctions list. The new penalties were imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control and follow earlier efforts by the administration to disrupt the flow of Iranian oil, which authorities say is carried by Iran’s “shadow fleet.” The United States has already penalized dozens of individuals and vessels involved in the shipments. “Any refinery, company, or broker that chooses to purchase Iranian oil or facilitate Iran’s oil trade places itself at serious risk,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a news release. “The United States is committed to disrupting all actors providing support to Iran’s oil supply chain, which the regime uses to support its terrorist proxies and partners.” Iran is accused of backing militant groups including Yemen’s Houthis, who have launched attacks on international shipping, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. During his confirmation hearing earlier this year, Bessent criticized the Biden administration’s sanctions policies and called for the U.S. to have a more “muscular” sanctions system, including on Iran and Russian entities and oil. Tammy Bruce, a State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement Wednesday that Trump “is committed to drive Iran’s illicit oil exports, including to China, to zero.” “As Long as Iran attempts to generate oil revenues to fund its destabilizing activities, the United States will hold both Iran and all its partners in sanctions evasion accountable,” Bruce said. The new sanctions were announced the same day that Iran confirmed that the next round of talks with the U.S. on Tehran’s nuclear program will be held in Rome. Responding to the sanctions announcement, Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington, said the use of the sanctions “undermines international trade order and rules, disrupts normal economic and trade exchanges, and infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and individuals.” A spokesperson for Iran’s U.N. mission did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday. (AP)

The State Department has shut down its office that sought to deal with misinformation and disinformation that Russia, China and Iran have been accused of spreading. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Wednesday that he had closed what had been known as the Global Engagement Center because it had taken actions to restrict freedom of speech in the United States and elsewhere. The center has been a frequent target of criticism from conservatives for calling out media and online reports that it said are biased or untruthful. At times, it has identified U.S. websites and social media accounts that it argued were amplifying misinformation, particularly related to the Russia-Ukraine war. “It is the responsibility of every government official to continuously work to preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech,” Rubio said, charging that the office worked “to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.” Rubio said that is “antithetical” to the principles that “we should be upholding.” Congress had supported the center’s work, as had previous State Department leadership. “This is a deeply misleading (and) unserious portrayal of an organization focused on identifying foreign — primarily Russian — disinformation ops,” former State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a post on X. (AP)