TEHRAN - During a meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors in Vienna on Tuesday, a senior Russian diplomat lambasted the United States and its European allies for leveling false charges against Iran for its nuclear program, saying that “it is difficult to take them seriously.”

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, urged the U.S. and the E3 — France, Germany, and the UK — to return to the Vienna negotiations to complete a deal that would revive the 2015 international accord on Iran’s nuclear program.

“In the #IAEA BoG Western states expressed numerous complaints and concerns about nuclear programme of #Iran. It’s difficult to take them seriously, because the #US and #E3 can help settle these problems fast if they return to the #ViennaTalks to finalise the agreement on #JCPOA,” Ulyanov tweeted.

During the board meeting on the verification and inspection of Iran’s nuclear activities according to UN Security Council Resolution 2231, representatives of the United States, the European Union, and the E3 renewed their accusations against the country’s nuclear program.

They urged Iran to fully comply with its responsibilities under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was signed in 2015, without naming the United States as the party whose unilateral exit from the deal in 2018 placed the pact’s future in doubt.