Iran voluntarily grants IAEA access to two locations specified by UN agency

At the end of a two-day trip by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to Tehran, Iran and the UN agency issued a joint statement on agreements and the results of high-level talks between the two sides.

According to the Wednesday statement put on the website of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Islamic Republic of Iran “agreed to further reinforce their cooperation and enhance mutual trust” to facilitate the full implementation of Iran’s Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) and the Additional Protocol (AP) thereto, which is provisionally applied by Iran since January 16, 2016.

“After intensive bilateral consultations, Iran and the IAEA reached an agreement on the resolution of the safeguards implementation issues specified by the IAEA, in good faith. In this regard, Iran is voluntarily providing the IAEA with access to the two locations specified by the IAEA and facilitating the IAEA verification activities to resolve these issues,” the statement said.

According to the statement, the dates for the IAEA access and the verification activities  have been agreed.

It said the Agency’s verification activities shall be carried out in accordance with the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and the Additional Protocol and the Agency’s standard verification practice as implemented for all states with Safeguard Agreements and Additional Protocols “on equal basis and without discrimination.”

In the context of Resolution GOV / 2015/72, adopted by the Board of Governors on December 15, 2015, “the IAEA and Iran recognize that these safeguards implementation issues are exclusively related to nuclear material and activities subject to safeguards under the CSA and the AP.”

In the present context and based on the analysis of information available to the Agency, the statement said “the IAEA does not have further questions to Iran and further requests for access to locations other than those declared by Iran under its CSA and AP.”

The two sides also stressed in the statement that the Agency’s “independence, impartiality and professionalism” are still essential to the fulfillment of its verification activities.

The statement concluded that the Agency will continue to address Iran’s security concerns by protecting all safeguards confidential information in accordance with the IAEA Statute, the relevant provisions of the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and the Additional Protocol, and the confidentiality of the Agency, as well as the “established IAEA confidentiality regime, standards and procedures.”

Grossi arrived in Tehran on Monday on his first visit to the country since taking office in December to hold talks with senior Iranian officials.

The visit took place over two months after the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution on June 19, put forward by Britain, France and Germany – the three European signatories to the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), to push for inspections of two sites that the trio claims may have been used for undeclared nuclear activities in the early 2000s.

It was the Israeli regime’s spy service that first came up with the allegations of such activity at the two sites. Iran has, however, strictly rejected the allegations.