Iran is rejecting “undue pressure” from the US and Israel over its nuclear program and warns it could be “counterproductive” to cooperation with the UN’s nuclear watchdog.
Tehran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Agency (IAEA), Kazem Gharib Abadi, tells a meeting of the agency’s board of governors that recent statements by US officials and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amounted to “a US-Israeli plot” to put pressure on the agency and its inspection activities in Iran.
Gharib Abadi tells reporters that “we interpret all these acts and activities as undue pressure on the agency.”
Iran’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Kazem Gharib Abadi gives a press conference after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors meeting in Vienna on July 10, 2019. (Alex Halada / AFP)
He says that any attempt to “put the agency under pressure would be counterproductive, both for the integrity and the credibility of the agency and also for… constructive, timely and proactive cooperation by Iran with the agency.”
“Absolutely Iran will make its own reactions to these pressures,” he adds, without specifying what these would be.
The row centers on the IAEA’s call on Iran earlier this week to “respond promptly” to the agency’s questions.
While the agency itself has not called Iran’s cooperation inadequate, Israel has accused Tehran of operating secret nuclear facilities in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal, while he US has said there are “questions about possible undeclared nuclear activities.”
— AFP
