Tehran vows ‘fitting response’ to West’s anti-Iran statement at IAEA meeting

Tehran : Iran has vowed “a fitting response” to the anti-Iran statement issued at a meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors.

Iran will respond to the “political move” of the E3 group of France, Britain and Germany as well as the US, a Foreign Ministry statement quoted spokesperson Nasser Kanaani as saying on Wednesday, adding that exerting political pressure on Iran will backfire.

Kanaani noted that the criticism levelled against Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA in the statement came on the heels of significant progress in the cooperation between Tehran and the agency following the two sides’ interactions since the beginning of the year.

Kanaani said that Iran is committed to the principle of cooperating with IAEA within the framework of the safeguards agreements, Xinhua news agency reported.

He added it is a regret that the E3 and the US, which have “certain motives” behind their anti-Iran moves and have adopted hostile stances against the country, are abusing the technical cooperation between Tehran and the IAEA to achieve their political objectives.

In the statement, the E3 claimed that Iran’s actions remain in “clear violation of its JCPOA commitments and stated intentions,” and that Iran has continued escalating its nuclear programme to “an alarming level clearly beyond credible civilian justification, and has displayed no will to implement the transparency commitments laid out in the joint statement agreed with the IAEA last March”.

Iran signed the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with world powers in July 2015, agreeing to put some curbs on its nuclear programme in return for the removal of the sanctions on the country. 

The US, however, pulled out of the deal in May 2018 and reimposed its unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting the latter to drop some of its nuclear commitments under the deal.

The talks on the revival of the JCPOA began in April 2021 in Austria’s capital Vienna. Despite several rounds of talks, no significant breakthrough has been achieved since the end of the last round in August 2022.