TEHRAN – Behrooz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), has denied any meeting between nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and the officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“Martyr Fakhrizadeh had not had any meetings or conversations with the former director general of Agency, inspectors or officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency and allegations made in this regard are baseless,” Kamalvandi said on Monday, according to Mehr.

He explained that the IAEA’s inspections are performed on the basis of legal principles accepted in the agreements inked between Iran and the IAEA, and just rules of safeguards or protocols are carried out and there is nothing beyond that.

No unusual inspections have happened nor will happen, Kamalvandi said.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 59, was assassinated on Friday in a terrorist attack involving at least one explosion and small fire by a number of assailants in Absard city of Damavand County, Tehran Province. 

Iranian officials were quick to point the finger at Israel, which has carried out assassination operations against Iranian nuclear scientists over the past decade.

“Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice—with serious indications of Israeli role—shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators. Iran calls on int'l community—and especially the EU—to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a tweet, hours after the Friday attack.

Several Iranian officials and lawmakers have also called for an end to Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA.

Kamalvandi said if a new decision is taken by the Iranian Parliament and high-ranking officials in this regard, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran will implement it.

Elsewhere in his remarks, he pointed to the dimensions of measures taken by the enemies of the Islamic Republic in various arenas, saying, “The enemies of the country have been defeated by the Islamic Revolution in the field of hard and soft power, and with these inhumane and brutal actions, they are trying to target technology, knowledge and security of our country.”

He added when the Zionists came to the conclusion that they cannot prevent Iran’s nuclear program and technological progress, they resorted to assassinate the country’s nuclear scientist Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had mentioned Fakhrizadeh in a 2018 presentation on the alleged atomic archive of Iran that Israel claims it stole from a warehouse in southern Tehran.

Netanyahu said at the time that he identified Fakhrizadeh as the head scientist in Iran’s nuclear program, and asked people to “remember that name”.

Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, has said the U.S. and Israeli regimes are responsible for the assassination.

“The cowardly assassination of Martyr Fakhrizadeh – with serious indications of Israeli responsibility in it – is another desperate attempt to wreak havoc on our region as well as to disrupt Iran’s scientific and technological development,” Takht Ravanchi wrote in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and President of UN Security Council Inga Rhonda King on Friday.

MH/PA