“The legal and technical aspects of Iran’s nuclear case will be closed in a not-so-far-away future,” Ali Akbar Salehi said on Monday after his joint press conference with visiting IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano in Tehran.
During the press conference, Salehi said Tehran and the agency have agreed on a road map for more cooperation and signed a joint statement in this regard.
According to the deal, Iran will voluntarily allow IAEA inspectors to visit the Arak heavy water plant and the Gachin mine in Bandar Abbas, southern Iran, despite the fact that Tehran is under no such obligation to do so under the Agreement on Safeguards. Uranium mining operations at Gachin mine, located in Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan, started in 2004. The first consignment of yellow cake was shipped from Gachin to Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) in December 2010.
Salehi said negotiations between Iran and the IAEA were interrelated with talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia - plus Germany
The AEOI chief also stated that Iran has no intention of addressing issues that have been raised and answered in the past.
The United States, Israel and some of their allies claim that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Tehran strongly rejects the claim, maintaining that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities, but has never found any evidence showing that the Iranian nuclear program has been diverted toward non-civilian objectives.
