TEHRAN— In a live interview with national TV late Sunday, Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said that Israel has turned into a reference for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

He also noted that AEOI has received signals from the IAEA indicating that the UN’s nuclear watchdog is ready to close the Safeguards probe.

During the interview, Eslami said that Iran is looking to break the atmosphere that has been shaped against Iran’s nuclear industry to block the path of achieving diverse accomplishments.

The AEOI chief noted, “The narrative that Zionists and Westerners make about Iran's nuclear program and the accusations they have against our nuclear industry predates to 20 years ago.”

He then noted that ever since 20 years ago, a provocative move has been formed against Iran’s nuclear industry which is led by the Zionists which ultimately led to the imposition of heavy sanctions against Iran.

“20 years of negotiations were conducted by various officials and finally the JCPOA agreement was reached, which is an agreement with two pillars. In one pillar, we reduced our speed for transparency and trust building, and they increased their monitoring, and in the other pillar, they were supposed to remove accusations and sanctions against Iran,” Iran’s nuclear chief added.

The West did not fulfill its obligations and withdrew from the JCPOA, Eslami noted, adding that now that they intend to return to the JCPOA, they say that these issues are new and different from the JCPOA. 

“These issues have existed since 2003, and now in 2022, nothing new has happened,” he reiterated.

Israel made the accusations against Iran, but now Israel has become a reference for the IAEA, Eslami added.

The AEOI chief revealed that in the negotiations that were conducted in the previous government, “the IAEA said that we have information and you should give us access to visit four places so that we can close this case.” They did not have valid documents for these accusations, as Eslami said.

He further noted that the IAEA inspectors came, visited and left and found nothing but contamination, which may be everywhere.

Referring to the agreement between Iran and Rafael Grossi, IAEA Director General, Eslami said, “We reached an understanding with Grossi and that a statement would be published and we said that you give us your queries and we will respond to the queries on the condition that you close the case.”

The Agency said that we are closing the case of two of the alleged places and you should clarify more about the next two sites, Eslami said, adding, “Later, they closed the case of one of those two sites and later, they reopened the case of the same site.”

Eslami exemplified, “One of these places is an abandoned mine that has been unused for more than 30 years.”

There is no nuclear activity in the Islamic Republic of Iran that has not been reported to the Agency or that the Agency is unaware of, he reiterated, adding that all of Iran’s activities are under the Agency's supervision.

About 2% of the world's nuclear capacity is related to Iran, but about 25% of the inspections are done from Iran, the AEOI chief lamented. 

Eslami then noted, “The messages we hear from the Agency show that they intend to close this (Safeguards) case. We hope they are honest and don't waste more time and don't assume that they can apply maximum pressure with this leverage.”

“The important issue is that there must be political will to close the case,” he concluded.