DUBAI, June 4. /TASS/. Tehran will respond in kind if the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approves an anti-Iranian resolution, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) head Mohammad Eslami said.
"In the event a resolution against Iran is approved by the [IAEA] Board of Governors as well as political pressure on the part of other countries, Iran will respond in accordance with the statement it made [earlier]," Iran’s Fars news agency quoted him as saying. The official added that the IAEA "continues inspections in Iran" and the Islamic republic is following "all the rules."
The Iranian authorities have repeatedly stated that they were against the IAEA’s "politicized approach" to settling the situation around Tehran’s nuclear program and urged to resolve this issue "in the technical direction" so that the talks "won’t diverge from the right path."
Iran stressed that it will continue its activity in the sphere of peaceful nuclear development in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and agreements on guarantees under this treaty between the IAEA and the Islamic republic. Iran has participated in the NPT since signing the treaty in 1968.
On June 3, the countries of the European Troika, (the UK, Germany and France) introduced to the IAEA Board of Governors a draft resolution urging Iran to cooperate with the agency and explain uranium traces at its undeclared nuclear facilities. The countries demanded that IAEA inspectors be allowed there and called on Iran to fulfill the provisions of a joint statement by the country and the agency concluded in March 2023.
The March statement noted Tehran’s intention to let the IAEA carry out inspections and monitoring as well as Iran’s readiness to provide access to three additional nuclear facilities. It pointed out that the IAEA and Iran agreed to proceed in observance with Iran’s "rights and obligations" and the IAEA’s purview.
On June 3, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi noted that the agency has no evidence of nuclear arms being developed in Iran, however, that Tehran now has the technical capability to produce weapons-grade uranium and admitted that new Iranian centrifuges for uranium enrichment are much more effective and potent than those installed within the framework of earlier agreements. According to him, the agency wants to continue talks with Tehran in order to resolve the situation diplomatically.