TEHRAN: On Thursday, Iran rejected as "baseless" a UN assessment stating that it was unable to certify the Iranian nuclear programme as being "exclusively benign."
All parties expressed optimism that a deal was close last month, but Iran is still insisting that any deal include the IAEA ending its probe into its prior nuclear operations, and diplomats say they are now less optimistic about a renewed accord.
The spokesperson for the Iran Atomic Energy Organization, Behrouz Kamalvandi, stated in a statement that "the current study... is a rehash for political purposes of false concerns from the past." At the IAEA's upcoming board of governors meeting, which will take place in Vienna from September 12 to 16, "Iran will provide its well-founded legal responses" to the conclusions, he added.
The International Atomic Energy Agency stated in its assessment that it was "not in a position to provide confidence that Iran's nuclear programme is entirely peaceful." Rafael Grossi, the director general of the IAEA, was quoted as saying that he was "increasingly worried that Iran has not engaged with the agency on the unresolved safeguards problems throughout this reporting period and, therefore, that there has been no progress towards resolving them."
A resolution that criticised Iran was adopted at the June meeting of the IAEA's board of governors as a result of the IAEA's pressure on Iran to provide information regarding the presence of nuclear material at three unreported sites.
Tehran, which insists that its nuclear programme is wholly peaceful, reiterated this week once more that the IAEA investigation must be finished in order to resurrect the 2015 agreement on its nuclear programme with international powers.
The IAEA addressed Iran's June decision to turn off 27 cameras that allowed the agency's inspectors to keep an eye on its nuclear activity in another report that was also released on Wednesday. The agency's ability to guarantee the peaceful character of Iran's nuclear programme has been negatively impacted by the removal of the cameras, the study stated.
The problem of the surveillance cameras would be resolved as part of the resurrected nuclear agreement, according to Kamalvandi. However, he emphasised that the United States has to live up to its duties as well by easing the economic penalties put in place when then-president Donald Trump unilaterally walked away from the agreement in 2018.
The parties to the accord "must uphold their promises in order to reinstate the prior verification mechanism," Kamalvandi stated. As Tehran and Washington exchange comments to a "final" draught accord drafted by European Union negotiators, the twin IAEA findings are released.
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