Amano Came to Iran’s Parliament to Win Trust: MP
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Chief Yukiya Amano’s participation in a Sunday session of an Iranian parliamentary commission was an effort to win the trust of the lawmakers, an Iranian MP said.
Amano paid a one-day visit to Tehran on Sunday, and met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi.
The IAEA director general also attended a session of a special parliamentary commission tasked with scrutinizing the finalized text of a nuclear deal between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).
The Japanese UN nuclear chief had in August attended a US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to discuss his agency's monitoring role in Iran.
The IAEA has been given the role of verifying Iran’s commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Speaking at a television talk show on Sunday night, head of the special Iranian parliamentary commission, Alireza Zakani, appeared not to be quite satisfied with Amano’s explanations at the session earlier in the day.
“Amano did not address the details of the issues, but only came to win trust and get acquainted with the realities,” Zakani said.
He, however, made it clear that the lawmakers will only trust the IAEA on the basis of actions, rather than words.
Making a reference to the IAEA’s history of biased approach towards Iran’s nuclear case, Zakani added, “(The IAEA's behavior towards us) so far has been discriminatory, and Iran has been regarded as a special case” among the UN nuclear agency’s members.
He underlined that Tehran expects Amano to deal with issues regarding Iran’s nuclear energy program “technically”, not “politically”.
According to Zakani, Amano insisted in the Sunday meeting that the IAEA deals with the cases technically and that the details of Iran’s nuclear program will remain confidential.
According to reports, Amano had announced in the session that “the agency respects confidential issues, because it deems it serious.”
“To protect confidential information, we have a regime, which we consider serious and will adhere to,” Amano said.
Iran and the Group 5+1 on July 14 finalized the text of the JCPOA, a lasting deal that would end more than a decade of impasse over Tehran’s nuclear program.
On the same day, Iran and the IAEA signed a Road-map agreement in Vienna to resolve all the past and present outstanding issues related to Tehran’s nuclear energy program.
