Soltanieh: IAEA expected to honor agreements with member states

Iran’s IAEA envoy, Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, said on Wednesday that the IAEA is expected to honor agreements with the member states.

“As you know, Iran and the IAEA had reached agreement on settlement of remaining issues and the two sides were committed to that. While Iran fully abided by its duties, unfortunately, the IAEA did not do so. The international community expects the director general to enforce the August plan of action (INFCIRC/711 2007), i.e. a negotiated and agreed modality for improvement of verification and speedy settlement of the remaining issues. Any expectation beyond framework of the mutual agreement, will undoubtedly harm confidence between Iran and the secretariat and prolonge political tension in the organization.”

He added, “Regarding realities in my letter to the director general, positive developments and constructive cooperation between Iran and the IAEA over the past six years, the IAEA is strongly expected to announce implementation of the Safeguards in Iran, thus putting an end to the existing political disputes. If confidence between the two sides is restored, the Islamic Republic of Iran will be in a better position to respond to question(s), if any, in connection with the Safeguards agreement.”

The Iranian envoy said that IAEA has always heard the US raising false claims, including its claim on Iraq, as a pretext for occupation of a sovereign country and massacre of thousands of innocent civilians despite the IAEA announcement that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

“The same scenario has been repeated in case of Iran. Since the issue on Iran’s nuclear program was raised by the US, similar claims were raised by Washington which later turned out to be baseless. Reference can be made to the director general’s reports on claims about alleged military nuclear activities in Parchin and Lavizan and claims about other activities such as Gachin mine. Following inspection of the said sites, it was proven to the IAEA that the claims were all baseless.”

The IAEA lacks any binding mechanisms to seek compensation for the baseless claims which harm credit and reputation of the member countries, said Soltanieh, adding, “We are following up the issue with other countries within framework of dialogue on the Agency’s future."

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