Iran’s interactions with IAEA based on safeguards agreement, NPT: Nuclear chief

The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) has rejected claims that the organization has breached the law concerning its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, saying the relationship is restricted to the safeguards agreement and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

“Our relations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are based on the safeguards agreement and the NPT, nothing more or less,” Mohammad Eslami told a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday.

He also dismissed accusations that the AEOI has violated a 2020 anti-sanction law in its March deal with the IAEA on bilateral engagements.

The law, or the Strategic Action Plan to Counter Sanctions, was approved by the Iranian parliament in December 2020 in a bid to counter illegal sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States and its Western allies. It required the Iranian administration to restrict the IAEA inspections and accelerate the development of the country’s nuclear program beyond the limits set under the 2015 US-abandoned nuclear deal.

Under the legislation, some nuclear surveillance cameras, whose operations were deemed beyond Iran’s obligations under the safeguards agreement, were removed from the country’s nuclear plants.

Eslami once again rebuffed the claims about the installation of 100 surveillance cameras at a nuclear plant in the city of Isfahan.

“We had no new obligation to the IAEA beyond the safeguard agreement. All of our measures were taken within the framework of the Strategic Action Plan to Counter Sanctions,” he noted.

Iran has repeatedly voiced its readiness to resolve differences with the IAEA within a framework of constructive and mutual interaction and technical cooperation.

SS