“In case the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency adopts an anti-Iran resolution due to the suspension of the [NPT] Additional Protocol, we will give a proper response,” Ali-Akbar Salehi said on Sunday, a day before the IAEA Board’s meeting.
Referring to a recent joint statement between AEOI and the IAEA on Iran’s voluntary suspension of the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Safeguards Treaty, Salehi said, "The appendix to this statement is confidential.”
“No specific conditions have been made in this regard, and according to the detailed information about the list of facilities and surveillance cameras mentioned in this appendix and also due to security considerations and the need to hide the location of key facilities in Iran, this appendix will remain confidential,” he added.
The IAEA Board of Governors will convene its regular March meeting virtually on Monday. The Board will discuss a range of issues, including the verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 (2015) and NPT Safeguards Agreement with the country, according to the UN nuclear watchdog’s website.
On February 23, Iran stopped the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Safeguards Treaty. The halt came under the Strategic Action Plan to Counter Sanctions, a law passed last December by the Iranian Parliament, and adds to Iran’s previous steps away from the 2015 nuclear deal in response to the US’s unilateral withdrawal in 2018 and the other parties’ failure to fulfill their commitments.
In this regard, the IAEA and the AEOI reached a temporary bilateral technical understanding, under which the latter would continue to use cameras to record information at its nuclear sites for three months, but it would retain the information exclusively. If the US sanctions are lifted completely within that period, Iran will provide the footage information to the UN nuclear watchdog, otherwise, it will be deleted forever.
On Friday, February 26, Salehi warned that recordings from monitoring equipment that the IAEA installed at the country’s nuclear sites will be deleted if the United States does not lift its unilateral sanctions within the next three months.
“Now, the IAEA does not have the right to access surveillance cameras for up to 3 months, and if the sanctions are not lifted, the information recorded by the cameras will be deleted and cameras will be uninstalled. The agency issues a report every three months, so we gave it a chance,” he said on Friday.
MNA/TSNM2461563