Iran Says IAEA Repeats Previous Accounts
By Iran Review
Iran describes an introductory statement by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tehran’s nuclear energy program as a repetition of Yukiya Amano’s previous accounts.
Iran’s Ambassador to the UN agency Ali Asghar Soltanieh said Amano’s latest statement is only a summary of his earlier report.
On Monday, the IAEA chief voiced “serious concerns” about a possible military dimension to Iran’s nuclear activities.
Soltanieh, however, said that in his own speech at the Board of Governors, he would address the key topics raised by Amano.
In his introductory statement, Amano said “the agency continues to verify the non-diversion of nuclear material declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement.”
Nonetheless, he claimed that Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation with the agency, particularly by not implementing its Additional Protocol.
The IAEA chief also pointed to the future steps and emphasized that the agency “will continue to address the Iran nuclear issue through dialogue and in a constructive spirit.”
He added that the negotiations would be basically aimed at resolving “all outstanding issues, in particular those related to possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program, and restore confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear activities without further delay.”
Iran’s IAEA envoy had earlier dismissed the last report by the agency as “unbalanced” and emphasized that it did not properly contain certain issues, including the agreements reached between the two sides during two rounds of talks.
