TEHRAN — Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the Vienna-based international organizations has urged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to clarify its position on the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

“The IAEA is first expected to pronounce clearly its position in relation with the terrorist act and strongly condemn it in clear terms,” Kazem Gharibabadi tweeted on Monday night. 

“The Agency has a dire responsibility vis-a-vis a Member who is receiving the highest level of inspections of the Agency and having the most transparent nuclear program through implementing various commitments, but its scientists are assassinated or under threat of assassination, and its nuclear facilities are sabotaged or under threat of sabotage,” Gharibabadi added.

It came after IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said Iran has nothing to gain from ending inspections of its nuclear facilities.

In an interview with AFP on Sunday, Grossi made the remarks in response to calls by Iranian MPs to end inspections following the assassination.

“We understand the distress but at the same time it is clear that no-one, starting with Iran, would have anything to win from a decrease, limitation or interruption of the work we do together with them,” he stated.

“This is not the first time that parliamentarians have expressed themselves in this way or in very similar ways,” Grossi pointed out.

“We haven’t received any indication of restriction or limitation of their cooperation with us,” he said. “I do not see any reason to believe that this would be the case now.”

Three days after he was assassinated on a major road outside Tehran, Fakhrizadeh was laid to rest on Monday. His assassination could further hamper diplomatic efforts to salvage the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which was abandoned by U.S. President Donald Trump in May 2018.

In a Monday letter to Ghada Fathy Ismail Waly, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Gharibabadi urged the international community to condemn the assassination of the prominent Iranian scientist.

“The assassination of Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is the continuation of other terrorist measures [against the Iranian nation], which started a decade ago through the assassination of several Iranian nuclear scientists in 2010, 2011 and 2012, and calls for due attention from the international community and relevant international organizations,” the diplomat stated.

The Iranian envoy pointed out that clear and concrete evidence shows Israel played a role and is responsible for the terrorist attack, particularly with regard to the fact that the regime's officials have repeatedly spoken about Fakhrizadeh and also hatched plots to assassinate him.

Gharibabadi added that the Zionist regime has committed numerous crimes over the past decades and has not only been involved in terrorist measures against Iranians, but also played a role in the assassination of a number of scientists in other countries as well.

MH/PA