Rejecting the latest report by the UN nuclear agency on the Iranian nuclear program as politically motivated, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said it contains nothing new except “a word play serving certain goals.”

The AEOI spokesman, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said on Thursday that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s report was “a repetition of the previous baseless issues with political purposes.”

The Iranian official said some international media are distorting and sometimes interpreting the phrases, which the IAEA deliberately uses in a vague way and are full of unnecessary details and ambiguities, to fuel a hallow media campaign aimed at insinuating that the country’s nuclear program is not peaceful.

“Iran’s peaceful nuclear program has been the most transparent so far,” Kamalvandi said.

He said Iran will accept verification of its nuclear activities beyond the Safeguards Agreement only if the parties to the 2015 nuclear deal — officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — fulfill their obligations per the agreement and lift the sanctions against Tehran.

“They should not expect Iran to be open to inspections beyond the Safeguards Agreement when they do not fulfill their obligations and while their oppressive sanctions against the Iranian nation continue,” the AEOI spokesman pointed out.

In its latest report, the IAEA said on Wednesday that Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent purity has grown to well above the amount that is enough for a nuclear bomb, if enriched further.

Tehran’s measures come in response to the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA in 2018. Pulling out Washington from the 2015 deal, then-president Donald Trump imposed severe economic sanctions against Iran in what he called “maximum pressure policy” in a bid to reach a “better deal.”

 

By Tasnim