Monday, 22 February 2021_Tehran says its Sunday agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is in complete conformity with a recent law passed by the Iranian Parliament that pushes the country’s nuclear program forward.
“What has been done is entirely within the framework of the Parliament’s legislation,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said at a press conference on Monday, hinting at an agreement reached between Ali-Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), and Rafael Grossi, the director general of the IAEA, in Tehran on Sunday.
Khatibzadeh said that under the agreement, Iran’s voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s Safeguards Agreement will be suspended while some of the IAEA’s necessary verification and monitoring activities will continue for up to three months within the Safeguards Agreement.
Grossi arrived in the Iranian capital late Saturday for talks about issues relating to the agency’s monitoring of Iran’s nuclear energy program. His visit came after Tehran officially informed the IAEA of its decision to end the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol, which allows the IAEA inspectors to carry out closer inspections of Iran’s nuclear program.
Khatibzadeh explained that according to the new agreement, Iran will refuse to share footage from cameras at its nuclear sites with the IAEA.
He further emphasized that the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran expended considerable efforts so that the agreement would be in accordance with the parliament’s law.
Back in December, Iranian legislators passed a law to further accelerate the development of the nuclear program. The law is a firm reaction to Washington’s 2018 withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – and the illegal sanctions the US has imposed against Iran since then.
Among other things, the law tasked the Iranian administration to stop allowing inspections beyond the Safeguards Agreement, including the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol, if the other parties to the JCPOA failed to deliver on their commitments.