GENEVA — International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi opened the first round of technical protocol talks here Friday morning, beginning the formal drafting of the inspection regime that will sit beneath the April fifteenth ceasefire framework and replace the patchwork of suspended monitoring arrangements left by the Iran-Israel war.

The opening session, held at the Palais des Nations on a track separated from the broader diplomatic process, was attended by senior technical delegations from Iran, the IAEA secretariat, and observer teams from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany. Officials briefed reporters Thursday evening that the agenda for the four-day round had been narrowed during pre-talks consultation to three core questions: scope of declared facilities, frequency and modality of routine inspections, and the procedural framework for unannounced visits.

Grossi, in remarks before closed sessions began, described the protocol talks as “the engineering work that follows the political agreement,” emphasizing that the inspection regime had to be both technically rigorous and politically sustainable for Tehran’s domestic audience. He said the agency was approaching the negotiation with “the patience that a generational settlement requires.”

The Iranian technical delegation is led by Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, who arrived in Geneva on Thursday with a working team of approximately fifteen technical specialists. Eslami, in a brief statement to Iranian state media before departure, said Tehran was entering the talks “in good faith and with realistic expectations” but reiterated that the inspection regime had to “respect Iranian sovereignty and the dignity of Iranian science.”

The talks are scheduled to run through Monday afternoon, with a recess for Sabbath observance and a private dinner Sunday evening hosted by the Swiss foreign ministry. A second round is provisionally scheduled to begin May twenty-fifth in Vienna, with the IAEA secretariat hosting at its headquarters at the Vienna International Centre. Western diplomats briefed Thursday evening that a third and possibly final round was being penciled in for early June, with the goal of completing protocol drafting in time for IAEA Board of Governors review at its September session.

Several technical questions are expected to be unusually difficult. The scope of declared facilities — specifically, whether facilities that were damaged or partially destroyed in the war but have since been repaired or reconstituted require fresh declarations under the protocol’s clean-slate provisions — has been a point of disagreement in the pre-talks. Iranian officials have argued that previously declared facilities remain governed by their original declarations; Western and IAEA officials have argued that significant reconstruction triggers a new declaration obligation.

A senior Western diplomat, speaking on background after the Friday morning session, said the opening had been “professionally cordial” and that Eslami had not used the public portion of the meeting to relitigate questions resolved in the April fifteenth framework. The diplomat said the working teams had moved quickly into substantive discussion of the routine-inspection cadence question, with both sides indicating willingness to consider frequency arrangements above the pre-war baseline.

A senior IAEA official, asked about the relationship between the technical protocol track and the broader Security Council resolution adopted May eleventh, said the two were “complementary but distinct.” The Council resolution, which framed the inspection regime as flowing from the ceasefire framework, did not bind the technical negotiation on specific modalities. The official said the secretariat had structured the protocol talks to produce a stand-alone agreement that could be reported back to the Council in due course.

The Saudi observer team, attending in its capacity as a regional party to the broader post-war framework, was led by Prince Khalid bin Salman, the deputy defense minister. The presence of a senior Saudi figure at the talks underscored the kingdom’s interest in seeing the inspection regime function in a way that supports regional confidence-building, particularly with respect to the bilateral channels opened between Riyadh and Tehran earlier in May.

A senior State Department official, asked about Washington’s expectations for the talks, said the United States was “supportive of the IAEA leading this process” and would refrain from public commentary on specific protocol provisions during the active drafting period. The official said the administration’s interest was in seeing a regime that “produces durable confidence in Iran’s compliance” and that could be sustained across multiple administrations and across changes in Iranian governance.

The Friday afternoon session was scheduled to address the routine inspection cadence question in detail, with each side presenting opening positions before working groups break out for technical drafting Saturday morning. Grossi is expected to deliver a public readout of the round’s progress in a press availability scheduled for Monday afternoon.