The government of Iran spent months brushing off inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency tasked with investigating Iran’s past nuclear work, and only began fully cooperating with them this week, The Wall Street Journal reported (Google link) Wednesday.

Iran’s behavior changed when “the IAEA and some Western governments directly warned Tehran that it must increase cooperation if it wanted IAEA board members to conclude it had sufficiently addressed their concerns,” the Journal reported.

Diplomats interviewed by the Journal said that they expected that the IAEA “would gain access to key sites, documents and people who had worked on Iran’s nuclear program.” But Iran has shared much less than what was hoped for. Documents provided to the IAEA in August contained little new information. Iran has held expert-level meetings with the IAEA for the past month, but sources described them as “unhelpful, with Iranian officials largely stonewalling on questions and claiming that IAEA evidence was forged.”

Today is the deadline for Iran to provide the IAEA with all relevant information to answer questions about its past nuclear work. Iran has supplied the IAEA with “more information and more access” in the past two weeks, a source told the Journal. But despite increased last-minute cooperation, it “remains unclear if Iran’s response will be enough to answer some long-standing questions” about its past nuclear weapons research.

Monday, October 19 is “Adoption Day,” which is 90 days after the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution affirming the terms of the nuclear deal. This is when the European Union will announce the termination of its sanctions against Iran and the United States will end some sanctions and suspend others.

[Photo: openDemocracy / Flickr ]