Iran's envoy: Pressure undermines IAEA's impartiality, credibility

Iran's permanent Ambassador to the IAEA Reza Najafi made the remarks in his speech to the IAEA Board of Governors on Wednesday. The full text of his speech is as follows:

In the Name of God

The Compassionate and the Merciful

Mr. Chairman, Director General, Distinguished Colleagues,

My delegation would like to express its gratitude to the Agency’s Secretariat for its efforts on the monitoring and verification of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Mr. Chairman,

The JCPOA, as a historic international agreement, ended an unnecessary crisis on 14 July 2015. While endorsing the JCPOA, the UN Security Council affirmed that “conclusion of the JCPOA marks a fundamental shift in its consideration of this issue” and expressed “its desire to build a new relationship with Iran strengthened by the implementation of the JCPOA”. Regrettably, there are recent moves contrary to such commitment.

Like any other deal, the JCPOA relies entirely on reciprocal and full implementation of the measures by all parties in good faith and in a constructive atmosphere, based on mutual respect. For its part, since the Implementation Day, Iran has fulfilled its commitments under the deal and the Agency’s reports on verification and monitoring of JCPOA in Iran provides substantiated evidence to such commitment. However, after more than 20 months, the implementation of the commitments of other sides to the JCPOA, in particular the United States is yet to be acceptable. Indeed, by limiting Iran’s benefits from the deal the US Government in contradiction with both letter and spirit of the agreement, particularly paragraphs 26, 28 and 29 of the JCPOA, has taken an unconstructive approach to undermine “successful implementation” of the JCPOA. In this context, sending an official to Vienna accompanied by media rhetoric aimed at undermining the credibility of the Agency is another example of bad faith and insincere behavior of that Government. Ironically, this government keeps claiming that it would like to solve other international issues through dialogue and negotiations. International community wonders how such government can be trusted in making any international deal by such bad performance.

The UNSC Resolution 2231 has clearly emphasized “the essential and independent role of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in verifying compliance with safeguards agreements.” Therefore, putting pressure on the Agency by any means would adversely affect the professional and impartial nature of the work of the IAEA in carrying out the job entrusted to it by the UNSC Resolution 2231 and the resolutions of the Board of Governors, thereby undermining the independence and credibility of the Agency.

As clearly stipulated in the JCPOA and UNSC Resolution 2231, the IAEA should avoid “hampering the economic and technological development of Iran” and also respect “security provisions in force and the rights of individuals; and take every precaution to protect commercial, technological and industrial secrets as well as other confidential information coming to its knowledge.”

Mr. Chairman,

We note with appreciation that recent updated report (GOV/2017/35), once more demonstrates that Iran’s nuclear program continues within the framework of the JCPOA.

Nonetheless, I would like to reiterate the following points:

1.As stated before, the JCPOA text on heavy water reads that all excess heavy water which is beyond Iran’s needs will be made available for export to the international market based on international prices and delivered to the international buyers for 15 years. While we are being contacted by potential buyers, some amount has been shipped out for sale at international market.

2.We would like to stress, once more, that the report should be as concise as possible and avoid mentioning avoidable detailed information, particularly it should not contain confidential Safeguards information.

3.We would also like to reiterate our observation on the definition of “stockpile” and its difference with the term “inventory” and recall that this is a matter for discussion in the Joint Commission.

4.With regard to a reference to Section T in para 27, my delegation would like to put on record our strong reservation on some new arbitrary interpretations including those of US or some EU members contrary to the clear text of different sections of Annex I of the JCPOA and the history of negotiations on that. It’s exclusively the duty of Joint Commission to elaborate it if necessary.

I would also like to refer to few delegations that asked again for disclosure of the raw and detailed confidential safeguards information contrary to the BOG approved mandate. Such request gives the impression that the Agency should not be trusted and its assessment should be reassessed again independently. My delegation would like to recall that in addition to the provisions of Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and Article V of the Additional Protocol for protection of confidential information, the JCPOA clearly requests the Agency “to take every precaution to protect commercial, technological and industrial secrets as well as other confidential information coming to its knowledge”. We strongly oppose the inclusion of confidential safeguard information in any upcoming report under the pretext of more transparency. Before concluding, I should recall the reaffirmation by the Agency that implementation of the Additional Protocol provisions in Iran would be like any other Member States with Additional Protocol.

For the last speaker before me, a regime with a history full of occupation, aggression and violation of all international norms and principles, a regime that is not party to any treaties on weapons of mass destruction, the only non-party to the NPT in the region, a regime which is in possession of tens of nuclear warheads and constantly threatens countries of the region and beyond, talking about proliferation concerns is ridiculous and completely out of context.

It’s crystal clear that that the Israeli regime’s clandestine and unsafeguarded nuclear weapons program is the most serious threat to the regional and international peace and security which requires serious attention of this august body without further delay.

Thank you Mr. Chairman

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