IAEA responds to US fears on Iranian nuclear deal: Tehran respects all commitments

Director General Yukiya Amano met US Ambassador to the UN Haley. Tehran follows the terms of the agreement and allows access to all sites. A response to Washington’s claims of "insufficient" visits and controls. The EU expresses its total support for "one of the most important achievements of international diplomacy".


Tehran (AsiaNews) – At a meeting at UN headquarters in New York between US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, the IAEA chief confirmed that Tehran "respects the commitments" of the nuclear agreement (the JCPOA).

An IAEA note released following the talks states that "so far" agency experts have "had access to all sites they wanted to visit in the country." Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) has also reiterated the importance of the agreement and its commitment to making sure it is "applied and respected".

For the second time, Amano met the head of US diplomacy at the UN, among the biggest critics of the nuclear agreement signed in 2015 between the powers of the 5 + 1 (United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France and Germany) and the Islamic Republic. Haley has repeatedly called for action against Tehran. Hers is one of the most listened to voices in international relations by the US president, as well as being responsible for the Iranian nuclear file.

A frontal confrontation with Iran that has recently pushed Donald Trump to threaten Jcpoa's complete cancellation, as well as invoking new sanctions against Tehran at US Congress. On October 13, Trump, in a fiery speech, accused Iran of not respecting the terms and the spirit of the agreement and three days later advanced the hypothesis of a "total cessation" of the pact, calling it a "very real possibility ".

Prior to the critical positions and the US intransigence on the issue, the highest representative of the international agency on atomic energy once again stressed Tehran's "full application" of the terms of the agreement. In a face-to-face with Haley, Director General Amano has "discussed the application and monitoring" of the planned commitments. And he reiterated to his interlocutor that "it represents a significant contribution to the verification of nuclear power and that Iranian commitments have been respected".

"So far," he continued, "the IAEA has had access to all sites that it has wanted to visit in the country." This is a direct response to past complaints from the US representative to the UN that the controls so far implemented and the sites visited were "inadequate". Turning to Haley, he concluded that "IAEA inspectors will continue to do their job in a fair and impartial manner."