Grossi says Saudi talks give the IAEA powers close to an Additional Protocol

Rafael Grossi said on Monday that Saudi Arabia is preparing to give the International Atomic Energy Agency extra inspection rights on the most sensitive nuclear steps, even though Riyadh will not sign the Additional Protocol as part of its planned atomic deal with the United States.

The IAEA director general spoke in Vienna after a Board of Governors meeting. Washington and Riyadh signed a civil nuclear “123” agreement in July. That text does not bind Saudi Arabia to the Additional Protocol, the standard that lets agency inspectors look beyond declared facilities and demand short-notice access. Iran accepted that protocol from 2016 to 2021 under the 2015 nuclear deal, then stopped applying it after the United States left the pact in 2018.

Grossi called the Additional Protocol the “ideal setup.” He then described what is being written instead. Consultations on the bilateral agreement, he said, have added verification and monitoring rights that go beyond Saudi Arabia’s Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement. Those rights would cover uranium enrichment, uranium conversion, and reprocessing that separates plutonium from spent fuel.

“These are sensitive activities, as we all know. So for those we are going to have authorisations and capacities which are very, very similar to those that you may find in an Additional Protocol,” he said. He did not read out the clauses.

The distinction matters in Vienna. An Additional Protocol is a known legal instrument with a published text and a peer group of states that have signed it. A set of extra rights parked inside a U.S.-Saudi bilateral deal is a private bargain. It can be strong on paper. It is harder for other members to audit. Grossi’s job on Monday was to tell the board that the agency would not be locked out of the fuel cycle if Saudi plants are built.

Saudi Arabia has spoken for years about domestic enrichment. The United States has tried to sell reactors without handing over that right. The July 123 agreement was the political frame. Monday’s remarks are the safeguards frame. Riyadh stays outside the protocol. The agency still wants a window on conversion, enrichment and reprocessing if those plants exist.

The comparison with Iran is sitting in every briefing note. Tehran’s file is frozen. Inspectors have had no useful run at the bombed sites. Grossi has said so in restricted papers this month. A Saudi arrangement that looks “very similar” to a protocol is, in that context, a way to tell sceptical members that a new nuclear programme in the Gulf will not start in the dark.

It is also incomplete. Similar is not identical. Bilateral authorisations can be amended by the two capitals. A protocol is harder to unwind without a public fight. Lawyers in Vienna will want the Saudi clauses in writing before they accept Grossi’s adjective.

For Riyadh the politics run the other way. Signing the Additional Protocol would have been a concession to Washington and to the agency. Keeping the protocol off the 123 text preserves a claim to sovereign choice. Writing extra rights into the same text is how both sides leave the room with a sentence they can defend.

The next test is physical. If Saudi Arabia builds conversion or enrichment, inspectors will find out whether those “authorisations and capacities” open doors on the schedule Grossi described. Until then, Monday’s press conference is a statement of intent from the agency’s side, tied to a deal that has been signed and a protocol that has not.