IAEA would act according to its own verification

Hamid Baeidinejad, Deputy-FM and Head of Politial and International Security office of the Foriegn Ministry, who was speaking in unveiling ceremony of his book ‘Step-by-Step with JCPOA: From Beginning to End’ held in the House of Literati in Tehran on Saturday, responded to some questions on JCPOA, US behavior and the IAEA by the press. Mr. Baeidinejad rejected quotations from Yukiya Amano, the IAEA Secretary-General on the media as ‘inaccurate and inexact;’ “Mr. Amano has not used ‘historically unprecedented inspections’ in his report. The MoU signed with the IAEA on its inspections have clearly expressed in the JCPOA and would not go beyond that; the manner of inspections comply with the rules of the Additional Protocol,” he told reporters.

On reports that Mr. Amano had said that the IAEA would not trust Iran, Mr. Baeidinejad again refuted the quotation as ‘inexact;’ “the quotation is again out of context, since the IAEA does not work based on mutual trust, but based on its own verification mechanism. The Agency has worked in the same manner about Iran in its verification; Mr. Amano accurately said that the Agency would not act according to individual countries’ reports, but according to its inherent mission,” he added.

On Iran’s possible retaliatory measures should Iran come to conclusion that the US Congress actions violated JCPOA, the nuclear negotiator tersely responded that Iran had not yet come to a place to claim that the US had violated its commitments. However, he dubbed the Visa Waiver program as very disturbing; “in utmost levels, we have negotiated with the US officials and Mr. John Kerry has promised that the US would try its best to prevent the program to damage the JCPOA provisions the least,” he asserted.

On US seizure of Iranian assets in country’s banks, Mr. Baeidinejad said that the US conduct was not in a point where a violation of the JCPOA would be claimed; “JCPOA is only an agreement on nuclear issue and it would not bring drastic and overnight changes to US hostile policies toward us; currently, we face no critical issue and wait the US Supreme Court verdict; the Parliamentary Special JCPOA Commission closely watches the developments and would decide on due retaliatory actions,” he told reporters. “We would not haste into JCPOA implementation ‘under any circumstance’ and the 5+1 should respond Iran’s preliminary actions of implementation with removal of part of sanctions in the ‘implementation day.’”

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