Iran blasts political allegations by IAEA

February 24, 2023 - 22:46

TEHRAN- The UN nuclear agency’s unfounded and irrational claims against Iran’s nuclear program have been criticized by the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran (AEOI) as a political tactic to put as much pressure as possible on the Islamic Republic, Press TV reported.

Behrouz Kamalvandi asserted that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released classified information about Iran’s nuclear activities before the investigations are finalized in order to lay the groundwork for defamatory claims about Iran’s civilian nuclear program.

The UN agency alleged Iran had made an “undeclared modification” to the connectivity between the two clusters of cutting-edge machinery enriching uranium to up to 60% purity after the most recent inspection of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP) in January.

Shortly after that Iran was charged of being “inconsistent in meeting its nuclear responsibilities” in a joint statement released by the United States, UK, France, and Germany.

Dismissing the sweeping claims, Kamalvandi said Iran has only changed modes of enrichment, not “unannounced changes to the design information questionnaire” (DIQ) as stated by the IAEA.

“The inspector returned for another inspection and confirmed that Iran had not modified the DIQ, the mode that has been changed was indicated in the DIQ submitted to the agency. Once the agency was told of the inspector’s ‘mistake,’ he came back for another inspection,” Kamalvandi added.

“The agency filed a report against us, and regrettably, the three European countries and the U.S. released a statement against Iran shortly afterward,” he noted. 

Kamalvandi also criticized the U.S. and its European partners’ statement, calling it a “premeditated move.”

He went on to say, “The reports are technical, but they serve political purposes; we and the agency should address these matters alone, without the involvement of other parties.”

In response to a recent Bloomberg report claiming that the IAEA “is attempting to clarify how Iran acquired uranium enriched to 84 percent purity,” Iran’s nuclear agency official stated that detecting highly-enriched uranium particles in the pipelines linking centrifuges was a “normal issue.”

Iran has not considered the need to generate more enriched uranium up to the [agreed] point but will notify the UN agency if it “wants” to develop highly enriched uranium, according to Kamalvandi.

On the sensitive reports that were leaked to Western media outlets and the fabrications made regarding the IAEA inspections and subsequent results, he said, “It is evident that there is a conspiracy here.”

He said the IAEA is “100% culpable” for enabling the correspondence between Iran and the organization to be leaked to the media.

Kamalvandi underlined that Iran has regularly “conformed” to the safeguards, and that “15 reports from the agency itself are proof of our honesty and that Iran has entirely met its commitments.”

“But for a political motive that attempts to taint the image of the Islamic Republic of Iran, there is no logical rationale for the agency’s conduct,” he remarked.