IAEA Not a Place for Political Games
IAEA Not a Place for Political Games
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Thursday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is no place for political games.

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Rouhani made the remarks in reaction to a plan by the European Union to draft a resolution with the IAEA Board of Governors criticizing Iran for reducing cooperation with the UN nuclear agency.

President Rouhani also responded to a statement made by US President Joe Biden’s nominee for Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman that Washington is willing to develop the scope of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action by saying that the JCPOA is a single text agreed upon by the participant states and that Iran will hold no new negotiations on the agreement.

He advised the European countries not to pursue the case, also calling upon the UN nuclear agency not to allow “good and friendly” relations with Iran to be disturbed with such a move.

Reiterating that the agency is “no place for the political game”, Rouhani said, “let us do our technical job with the agency.”

Iran’s nuclear activities are 100 percent peaceful and if there is a little bit of distance from what the agency expects, it is the US fault, the president said.

“They lift the sanctions and there will be immediately warmer relations, and the IAEA inspectors can easily carry out whatever inspection within the framework of law without any kind of problem.”

Referring to US criminal sanctions on Iran over the past three years, Rouhani said that if the new US administration intends to compensate, Iran has left the door open.

The US sanctions have inflicted more than $200 billion on the Iranian economy, Rouhani said, however, noting that Iran has left this for the next.

He said that Iran wants the US to lift the criminal sanctions and then it can rejoin the JCPOA to engage in talks with Iran.

It would benefit no one to waste the time and if the time is wasted and something is postponed, the US will be held accountable, the president said.

  • source : IRNA