Iran answers IAEA questions if it sees an end to process: Analyst

A political commentator says Tehran is ready to answer International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) questions provided that when they are answered the process comes to an end.

“I have talked to Iranian diplomats and they told me that Iran has constantly expressed its willingness to answer all the questions that have been raised [by IAEA], provided that when the questions are answered, the process comes to an end,” Hamid Reza Emadi said in an interview with Press TV on Friday.

He went on to say that the United States has stopped the IAEA from fulfilling its duties, making the agency unwilling to end its questioning process with regards to Iran.

“The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is clearly working under a US-dictated mandate that has prevented it from performing its professional obligations, wants to maintain the pressure on Tehran. The agency, as the diplomats told me, does not want the case to be closed any time soon and they want to raise more questions, to raise more issues once the existing questions are fully answered by Iran. So this is going to be an endless process,” Emadi pointed out.

The political commentator further noted that the past dealings of the IAEA with the Islamic Republic show that the atomic agency is not willing to reach an agreement on any framework for mutual cooperation.

“Just take a look at the history of IAEA’s dealings with Tehran, they first raised the issue of a laptop that they got from nowhere and focused on it for several years and then totally forgot about it and moved on to a different issue which is the Parchin military site.”

Emadi stated that Iran is ready to give access to Parchin once a structured framework for cooperation is finalized and signed by the two sides.

“But the IAEA, under pressure from the West, does not want anything to be finalized at this point in time and they want to prolong the issue for an unspecified period of time,” he added.

Referring to reports quoting Western diplomats as saying that Iran has put “unacceptable conditions on the table,” Emadi said, “The bottom line is [that] Iran wants to resolve all the so-called outstanding issues once and forever, provided that the agency wants to do the same thing.”

“This is what those Western diplomats, who I believe most probably work for the IAEA, are rejecting as unacceptable conditions,” Emadi concluded.