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00:00Iran's nuclear program has been the focus of negotiations for years.
00:03I asked the director general of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi,
00:07about where things stand in these negotiations and, as he sees it, the likelihood of a new deal.
00:12When it comes to the state of Iran's nuclear program, what do we know at this point? What don't we
00:16know?
00:17Well, obviously the program suffered a big trauma starting last year with a 12-day war.
00:25And then this year, after February 28th, there was another episode of kinetic attacks on several nuclear facilities in Iran.
00:39This entailed an interruption on a regular system of inspections.
00:45However, we have an amount of knowledge that allows us to evaluate the situation.
00:51We know that there is still a fairly important amount of nuclear material in Iran, rich uranium at 60%.
01:02There is a vast amount of, I would say, facilities and equipment, some of which was, you know, importantly degraded
01:13as a result of the attacks.
01:15Some might have survived.
01:17But we have lost the ability to inspect.
01:23We haven't returned to all these places for more than a year now.
01:28So, perhaps I can tell you that we know that there is very little in terms of continued activity
01:34because these compounds of laboratories and facilities are no longer operating normally.
01:43There is a lot in terms of infrastructure and material there.
01:48There has been work, as you know, in order to try to establish some form of inspection system
01:54in the context of, for example, the Memorandum of Understanding, which was signed in May by President Trump
02:00and President Pesekian, which lapsed, unfortunately.
02:05So now, including this week, in New York, there have been a number of attempts to reestablish some form of
02:14dialogue.
02:15So, obviously, this has become a bigger issue now.
02:19It's not only the nuclear, as you know, the straits and what is happening in terms of the freedom of
02:26navigation and attacks, etc.,
02:27that is not in the remit of the IEA, but it's compounded with the overall problem.
02:33Iran's president was here.
02:35Have you had much luck having any kind of dialogue with the Iranians yourself?
02:38No, because they, I mean, we have a dialogue, but there is no actual negotiation
02:45because their position, as you may have heard, the president today,
02:50is that they are not going to engage in this conversation until there is some wider form of agreement.
02:59You mentioned you have a body of knowledge of what's happening in Iran.
03:01How handicapped are you not being able to have inspectors on the ground?
03:05How holistic a view do you have at the program?
03:07We are, because, obviously, you can say what you saw until the day you saw it.
03:12We are not analysts.
03:14We are inspectors, auditors, in a way.
03:17So, to confirm that the amounts of nuclear material or that the infrastructure that we used to visit and inspect
03:25is there or not,
03:26we have to have our inspectors there.
03:28And we have lost that capacity.
03:30You were involved in earlier talks surrounding some sort of deal.
03:34Are you involved in it now?
03:36If not, what is lost by not having you as a participant?
03:38There are no talks to begin with.
03:41I mean, now...
03:43No direct bilateral talks, of course.
03:44No, well, there has been some conversation.
03:46Apparently, here in New York, we were not involved.
03:48We are talking to the different interlocutors, if you want, separately.
03:51But there hasn't been a restart of organized conversation about this.
04:00So, on that side, there is nothing new to report.
04:05And, of course, we regret it.
04:06A question about semantics.
04:07We had the President of the United States use this word obliterated once again to describe the program.
04:11Is that a fair assessment of the program?
04:13Well, I don't comment on comments, you know.
04:15That is, adjectives that can be used.
04:18What is obvious and can be confirmed is that there has been very important damage.
04:23And, you know, you can characterize it as obliteration, partial destruction, total destruction.
04:29There has been a very important, huge degree of physical damage.
04:35And I think this has also been confirmed by Iran itself.
04:39We had the Obama-era deal that allowed for these inspections.
04:43That took an awful long time to put together.
04:45How optimistic are you that were talks to resume, you would get to a point in which inspections could happen
04:50again?
04:51I think it could be done pretty fast, to be honest.
04:54We have covered a lot of ground already in our work.
04:59The agreement that we would have would be completely different from the JCPOA.
05:06That is the first thing that one has to bear in mind.
05:09That was an agreement that was operating on a nuclear program that was working.
05:15Now we have a post-war scenario, which is completely different, if there is an agreement.
05:22So what we have now is an attempt to have a system to see whether there is some activity that
05:29could be continued,
05:31then what to do with the nuclear material, to downblend it, to export it, what to do with it.
05:37So this is a completely different concept than what we had with the JCPOA.
05:42And it can be done pretty fast if there is the political will for it.
05:45Let's talk about the race for Secretary General.
05:47You're in the running.
05:48We've had the latest straw poll.
05:49You're not in first place.
05:51How do you intend to make up that ground here to win this election?
05:55Well, you know, this is a very peculiar process for those who are familiar with it.
05:58And there are lots of oscillations and changes in terms of first place, second place, third place.
06:04That, without diminishing its importance, that doesn't mean much at this stage
06:09because we haven't entered the phase where the real voting, including with all the capacities that are there,
06:19vetoes and, you know, this kind of legal capacities exist.
06:27So there is a degree of informality.
06:29There is some sort of trends.
06:32There are some sort of trends that start to appear, but the process is pretty much open at this point.
06:41So much of the conversation this week is centering on AI, the threats of AI to humanity.
06:46And I'm curious how you would, if elected, approach that issue in particular.
06:50I've noted the parallels that people have drawn to the development of nuclear weapons, at least from a policy perspective.
06:55Do you see that similarity?
06:57We do see it.
06:58First of all, because we deal with AI.
07:00We do not talk about it.
07:01We deal with AI.
07:03In nuclear, it's already there.
07:07And some people, and I think you might be referring to that, draw an analogy between the control of AI
07:15models and so on and so forth,
07:18and the accountability and control for nuclear material.
07:21We have been saying that there are very important differences between one and the other.
07:27And personally, we do not believe that a top-down, strong, regulatory approach to AI would be as effective as
07:37when you have to account for uranium or numbers of centrifuges.
07:42A different approach, more collaborative, information-sharing, behavioral approaches would be needed.
07:49And the IEA has a lot of experience.
07:51How do you see the UN's role broadly?
07:53So there's a conversation among companies, of course, about regulation.
07:56Individual governments are talking about it.
07:58There's some collaboration at a multilateral level.
08:00What is the UN's role here when it comes to regulating or policing AI?
08:03Well, the UN has something which is very interesting in general.
08:06And it is a capacity to convene, a capacity to put under the same roof different players.
08:12When it comes to AI, you have the companies, you have the designers, you have national regulators, you have a
08:18number.
08:18These days, we are seeing countries implement bans based on age of users.
08:28So I think there you have a multi-pronged approach where the UN could have a role to play.
08:39What I don't believe so much in is this idea that you have a set of regulations, you impose it
08:44on industry.
08:45And the risk is that instead of having a real control, you have an illusion of a control.
08:49You're controlling some of it, but not all of it.
08:51So I think a different approach, more collaborative, more open, more flexible and nimble is needed.
08:58Yours is a reform platform, a realist platform.
09:01And I'm curious how you would go about reforming this organization were you to be elected.
09:06What's top of mind?
09:06We've done it at the IEA.
09:08It's not impossible.
09:09It is very possible to have an international organization that is flexible, that does not grow incessantly,
09:16is not seeking to creep into territories that are not necessary.
09:23We believe, of course, that there are things that you can do from the Secretary General's point of view.
09:28And there are other things which require a dialogue with member states to see, to ascertain what is the real
09:38degree of ambition that they have in terms of reforming.
09:41Reform is indispensable.
09:43I think we all agree on that.
09:45It is not a bad point of departure because a few years ago nobody was talking about reform.
09:50And now everybody is a reformer.
09:52Better late than never.
09:53So I think it's a good point of departure.
09:57I think the current Secretary General is leaving us something interesting in that he launched U.N. 80.
10:04But U.N. 80 is more a snapshot than a plan for the future.
10:10How would you propose navigating the tensions, the very real tensions that we see between the U.S. and China
10:15in the crucible of the U.N.?
10:17Well, the difference that we can bring to the table is that we do it already.
10:23If we do worse, Iran, we do Ukraine, Russia, China, Japan, the Middle East, Syria, it's what we're doing now.
10:33We can do it here in a wider sense.
10:36Last question is just about the job and why you want it.
10:38I've heard a lot of people describe it as a thankless job.
10:40You're an unpopular person if you're in that titular position running the U.N.
10:44Why is it such a crucial job and one that you are so eager to have?
10:47Well, again, I would refer to what we do now.
10:49I have seen that it is possible.
10:52And in spite of all the difficulties and the criticism and the thankless nature of being impartial,
10:59we have seen that we can handle a difficult issue like protecting the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe
11:07from a nuclear accident between two belligerent states.
11:11We have seen that it is possible to bring inspections.
11:14We have seen that it's possible to take off a case like Syria from the least of concerns in the
11:19world.
11:19So it requires, of course, deep involvement.
11:24It requires good technical diplomacy, pragmatism.
11:28It's possible.
11:29Director Grossi, thank you very much.
11:30Thank you very much.
11:31Pleasure.
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