The Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his UN General Assembly address accused Iran of hiding nuclear material at a secret warehouse in an area in the south of the Iranian capital Tehran, calling on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to conduct an investigation on the site.
Today, the IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano defended the independent and impartial assessment of Iran atomic activities, saying that the agency has verified Iran’s nuclear activities in accordance with Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements and the Additional Protocols.
The IAEA statement issued today by Director General Yukiya Amano said the Agency implements safeguards in accordance with its rights and obligations deriving from the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements and the Additional Protocols concluded between the Agency and States, relevant IAEA Board of Governors and UN Security Council decisions and resolutions, and based on the Agency’s established safeguards practices. It should be noted that under the existing verification framework the Agency sends inspectors to sites and locations only when needed.
Amano’s statement added the Agency uses all safeguards relevant information available to it but it does not take any information at face value. In line with established safeguards practices, all information obtained, including from third parties, is subject to rigorous review and assessed together with other available information to arrive at an independent assessment based on the Agency’s own expertise. It is not the practice of the Agency to publicly discuss issues related to any such information.
The Agency’s work related to nuclear verification is and must always be impartial, factual, and professional. In order to maintain credibility, the Agency’s independence in relation to the implementation of verification activities is of paramount importance.
The Agency’s verification activities in Iran are being carried out based on the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) concluded with Iran and the Additional Protocol, that Iran is provisionally implementing. In addition, the Agency is also carrying out verification and monitoring of Iran’s nuclear-related commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). These activities will continue to be carried out within the parameters of the relevant decisions and resolutions of the IAEA Board of Governors and the UN Security Council as appropriate.
Amano concluded “as I stated in my reports to the IAEA Board of Governors, evaluations regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities for Iran remain ongoing. The Agency continues to evaluate Iran’s declarations under the Additional Protocol, and has conducted complementary accesses under the Additional Protocol to all the sites and locations in Iran which it needed to visit.”
KI/PR