TEHRAN - Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said that Iran is an important partner of the Agency.

He made the remarks in a meeting with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Mohsen Baharvand in Vienna on Tuesday, IRNA reported.

“Today, Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, H.E. Mr. Baharvand met with @rafaelmgrossi. They discussed different issues of interest including mutual cooperation,” the Permanent Mission of Iran to the UN in Vienna tweeted. 

According to IRNA, Baharvand called for cooperation in a “constructive atmosphere” without a third party’s influence.

In an introductory statement to the Board of Governors on Monday, Grossi said that he welcomes an agreement between the Agency and Iran which he hopes “will reinforce cooperation and enhance mutual trust”.

“We reached agreement on the resolution of the safeguards implementation issues raised by the Agency. The Agency subsequently conducted a complementary access, under the Additional Protocol, at one of the two locations specified by us. Our inspectors took environmental samples which will be analyzed. A complementary access at the second specified location will take place later this month,” the IAEA’s official website quoted him as saying.

Grossi visited Tehran on August 24 and 25 and held talks with senior Iranian officials. On August 26, at the end of his visit, Iran and the IAEA issued a joint statement on agreements and the results of high-level talks between the two sides.

According to the statement, the IAEA and 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.

In its quarterly report on September 4, the IAEA announced that Iran has granted the Agency’s inspectors access to one of the two sites it agreed the previous week for verification purposes.

The report added that the IAEA inspected the site and took environmental samples there while the agency’s inspectors would visit the other site “later in September 2020 on a date already agreed with Iran, to take environmental samples.”

NA/PA