“The framework of our cooperation with the Agency is clear, but the Agency must also consider its reputation and credibility,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in video conference presser on Monday.
“Any absurd claim made by any regime or individual should not be the basis of the Agency's questions.”
Mousavi’s reaction came after the IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi repeated his past claim on Monday that Iran has been barring the agency’s access to two out of three locations about which “the agency has identified a number of questions related to possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities.”
“The Agency has identified a number of questions related to possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities at three locations that have not been declared by Iran,” Grossi added.
Reiterating Iran’s full cooperation with the Agency, Mousavi argued that the IAEA's concerns about those sites, which have nothing to do with Iran's nuclear program, emanate from false reports provided to the nuclear agency by a regime’s spy agencies.
He stressed that the agency should leave baseless fabrications of some regime in its cooperation with Iran.
“Such an approach would certainly not be constructive,” Mousavi said.
He noted that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in his recent phone conversation with EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell, has discussed the Agency’s latest report on Iran’s nuclear activities, clarifying the country's position.
“We will certainly discuss this with the European sides, and we will explain the basis of our position to the Europeans and the members of the Agency,”
Further in his remarks, the spokesman referred to the recent statement by the European Union on Iran’s nuclear program, saying, “Whenever the Europeans take practical steps to fulfill their obligations, Iran will go back to its previous commitments.”
Grossi’s remarks came while on the same day, he confirmed Iran's compliance with its commitments as per the 2015 nuclear deal with the world powers, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), adding that the country continues to cooperate with the agency.
"To date, the agency has not observed any changes to Iran’s implementation of its nuclear-related commitments under the JCPOA in connection with this announcement, or in the level of cooperation by Iran in relation to agency verification and monitoring activities under the JCPOA,” he added.
US President Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned the JCPOA, signed between Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, in May 2018 and reinstated the anti-Iran sanctions, which had been lifted by the accord. Under Washington’s pressure, the three European signatories to the JCPOA have so far failed to fulfill their contractual obligation to protect Tehran’s business interests against the sanctions.
In response, Iran began last May to gradually reduce its commitments as part of its legal rights under the JCPOA to both retaliate for Washington’s departure and prompt the European trio to respect their obligations towards Tehran.
The country has so far taken five steps away from the deal under the IAEA’s supervision, but says its counter-measures are reversible if the other parties begin to fulfill their side of the agreement.
MNA/FNA13981221000109
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