Tehran, September 05: Iran appreciates the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for resisting ‘political pressure’ by certain western countries over Tehran’s nuclear dossier.
In an eight-page letter to the outgoing IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei released on Saturday, Iran’s ambassador to the agency, Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh, said Iran along with many other member states shared the view that the IAEA ‘resisted the political pressure’ by a few of Western countries trying to derail the agency from its ‘professional technical mandate’.
Soltaniyeh said Tehran trusts the UN nuclear watchdog as the ‘sole pertinent international technical organization’ in charge of nuclear activities and described the IAEA’s latest report on Tehran’s nuclear work as positive.
In his latest report on Iran released in late August, ElBaradei confirmed that the country is expanding its cooperation with the agency.
The report also said that the agency has been able to continue “to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran” but warned that Tehran “has not suspended its enrichment-related activities” as required by the UN Security Council.
After the release of his report, ElBaradei came under harsh criticism from Israel that claimed the IAEA was holding back information regarding what it called “Iran’s efforts to continue to pursue its military program” as well as “its lack of cooperation with the IAEA.”
Israel said that the report “does not reflect all the information known to the IAEA.”
In an interview with the Chicago-based magazine Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published on Tuesday, ElBaradei dismissed the claims and said what some countries called the threat from Iran ‘has been hyped’ in many ways.
The US and Israel along with some other Western countries accuse Iran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, an allegation rejected outright by Tehran.
In the letter, Soltaniyeh also said that issues such as high explosives and re-entry missile brought up in connection with ‘alleged studies’ was ‘outside the domain of the statutory mandate’.
He said that the IAEA could not ‘fulfill its obligations’ to submit ‘authenticated’ documentation to Iran concerning the issue, because the US failed to hand over any ‘authenticated’ documents to the agency.
“How can one make allegations against a country without provision of original documents with authenticity and ask the country concerned to prove its innocence or ask it to provide substantial explanations?”
The US and its allies insist that Iran should cooperate with the IAEA over alleged studies of weaponization. Such studies purportedly implicate Iran in pursuing a ‘green salt project, high explosives testing, and a missile re-entry vehicle project.’
Iran terms the documents forged, demanding that the IAEA provide Tehran with copies of the documents so that Iran can inform the agency of its assessment.
—–Agencies