Grossi says offered Iran proposal for continued cooperation
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi said Tuesday that it had offered Iran a proposal for continuation of cooperation and resolving remaining issues.
MEHR: Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi said Tuesday that it had offered Iran a proposal for continuation of cooperation and resolving remaining issues.
Speaking in a joint press conference in the Iranian city of Isfahan along with Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), the UN nuclear watchdog chief said that Iran and the IAEA need to take practical steps to continue the cooperation, adding that he had offered Tehran a proposal for continuation of cooperation.
Referring to the Joint Statement signed between the IAEA and the AEOI on March 4, 2023, Grossi said that the Agency does not seek a new document and it is going to work on the March statement. He added that the Joint Statement has the potential to resolve the remaining issues.
He added that Iran and the Agency have agreed on taking concrete and operational steps to implement the Joint Statement.
Later in his remarks, the IAEA chief ruled out that the Agency was influenced by the Israeli regime and Western countries' pressures in dealing with the Iranian nuclear program.
Grossi further asserted that the IAEA will work towards cooperation to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or any other document that Iran is willing to.
Eslami, for his part, said that Iran assesses the negotiations between Iran and the IAEA based on the March statement as a positive trend.
"However, due to some issues between Iran and IAEA, the process of cooperation slowed down, and both sides had expressed dissatisfaction with this slow pace. We continue our interactions based on the Joint Statement in three parts from now on; First of all, there are cases from the past that were closed in the JCPOA document in the form of Possible Military Dimensions (PMDs). These have their own issues that are related to external and political issues and should not spill over to other sectors. In this section, the important issue of 2 sites remains, the issue of material mismatch was solved, and we focus on resolving the remaining 2 sites issue," the AEOI head added
The Iranian official further called on the IAEA director general to play a facilitating role in removing barriers that are mostly political.
Eslami continued to say that Iran and the Agency have agreed to prepare a draft for the continuation of interactions based on the Joint Statement.
The AEOI chief further called on the IAEA to be careful about the hostile actions by the Zionist Israeli regime that are aimed at undermining the cooperation between the Iranian nuclear agency and the IAEA. He described the Israeli regime's actions as waging a media warfare against the Iranian nuclear program.
