Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Wednesday, September 10, to desist from making any politically charged accusations against his country and adhere to the new conditions in the signed agreement to avoid the cancellation of it.
Iran and the IAEA signed an agreement on Tuesday in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. The agreement was signed by Araghchi and IAEA chief Rafael Grossi. As per the news reports, it provides IAEA inspectors limited access to some of Iran’s nuclear sites.
Both Grossi and Araghchi described the deal as an important milestone to resume the full inspection of Iran’s nuclear sites, as it was before July this year. However, Araghchi also mentioned that the cooperation between Iran and IAEA cannot yet resume as it was before the 12-day Israeli-American war.
Iran suspended its cooperation with the IAEA in July following the Israeli-American attacks on its nuclear sites, in violation of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It had accused IAEA leadership of failing to condemn Israeli-American violations and even providing them justifications to launch the attacks.
Iran’s parliament voted on a law in late June declaring the suspension of IAEA inspections and authorizing the country’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) to be the final authority on the matter of future cooperation with the IAEA.
Israel launched the attacks against Iran a day after the IAEA released a report accusing Iran of noncooperation, on the basis of what Iran claims are decades-old and unsubstantial claims. Iran had also accused Grossi of leveling politically charged allegations against the country’s peaceful nuclear program.
As per Tuesday’s agreement, IAEA inspectors can oversee the fuel replacement process at Iran’s Busheher nuclear plant.
Iran will accept any pressure
On Wednesday, Araghchi warned the IAEA chief Grossi of making politically charged accusations against Iran. He also underlined that if his country is pressured with more hostile actions by any country it will withdraw from the deal.
Araghchi was referring to “snapback mechanism” proceedings the three European signatories of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Germany, France, and the UK are trying to invoke.
“If what is known as the ‘snapback mechanism’ is activated, the implementation of this document [the agreement with the IAEA] will certainly be halted. As for how Iran will respond and behave afterward, decisions will be made in due course,” Araghchi told the press.
The E3 recently wrote a letter to the UN Security Council asking to reimpose international sanctions against Iran. Sanctions were withdrawn following the signing of the Iran nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as it is formally known in 2015.
The E3 countries demand the snapback of sanctions on the basis of their allegation that Iran has violated the provisions of the JCPOA and enriched uranium above the prescribed limits.
Iran defends its decision to enrich uranium at higher levels on the basis of US and European violations of the agreement. Iran claims that E3’s move regarding the snapback lacks any legal or moral basis because as signatories of the deal they failed to perform their required role to check the US’s unilateral withdrawal from it in 2018.
Iran has pointed out how instead of preventing the US from violating the JCPOA and imposing unilateral sanctions against it, E3 joined the Americans and imposed their own sanctions against Iran.
E3 also failed to condemn the Israeli-American aggressions against Iran which violated both the IAEA and NPT provisions, along with Iranian sovereignty.
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