NEW YORK, June 27. /TASS/. Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (she served in 2005-2009) believes that Washington should turn to Russia to convince Iran to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit its nuclear facilities.
"My only concern is that we follow this up, perhaps even pushing the Russians, who claim to be friends of the Iranians, to say to the Iranians, ‘Time to let the IAEA in’ so that we can really investigate on the ground what the Iranians are doing," she said on Thursday in an interview with Fox News channel.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow hopes for continued cooperation between Iran and the IAEA. According to him, Russia is interested in "everyone respecting the repeatedly stated statements of the supreme leader of Iran that Iran does not have and will not have plans to create nuclear weapons."
On June 25, the Iranian parliament approved a draft law on suspending cooperation with the IAEA. On June 26, the Iranian Council of Guardians of the Constitution approved this document. Now it must be sent to the president for signing. As Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf explained, Iran has decided to cease cooperation with the agency temporarily, as it defends Israel and "prepares the ground for war."
In the early morning hours of June 13, Israel launched a military operation against Iran. Less than 24 hours later, Iran retaliated. Nine days later, on the morning of June 22, US jets attacked three Iranian nuclear facilities, entering the conflict. The following evening, Tehran launched a missile strike on Al Udeid, the largest US military airbase in the region, located in Qatar. According to the US authorities, there were no casualties or significant damage.
On June 24, Trump announced that Israel and Iran had agreed to a complete ceasefire. The Israeli authorities confirmed that they had accepted the US proposal and announced that they had completed all objectives in their operation against Iran. In turn, Tehran said that it had achieved a victory over Tel Aviv by forcing it to unilaterally halt its aggression.