The Islamic Republic has always been committed to international regulations and cooperated with the IAEA, Iran's Ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh told IRNA .
He pointed to a recent visit by a high-ranking IAEA delegation to Tehran, headed by the agency’s Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts, and stated that two rounds of multifaceted talks indicated Iran's goodwill.
The envoy also noted that Iran and the IAEA agreed to hold further negotiations to set a framework for bolstering bilateral cooperation.
Any inspection of Iran's nuclear facilities requires a legal framework and consideration, which should be agreed by the two sides, Soltanieh said.
Iran and the IAEA wrapped up three days of negotiations in Tehran on January 31, and the two sides agreed to hold more meetings in the future.
On February 21, a high-ranking delegation from the IAEA came to the Iranian capital for negotiations on further cooperation.
While Tehran says it is ready to continue the talks based on common grounds, it has stressed that it will not give up any of its rights.
The United States, Israel, and some of their allies accuse Iran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program and have used this pretext to impose international and unilateral sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Iran, however, maintains that, as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that the Iranian nation has never sought and will never seek nuclear weapons as it has the capacity to challenge the nuclear-backed influence that foreign powers rely on.
“There is no doubt that the decision makers in the countries opposing us know well that Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous,” stated the Leader.
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