Envoy Deplores IAEA’s Anti-Iran Resolution, Vows ‘Appropriate’ Response

“Adoption of this resolution will neither encourage Iran to grant access to the Agency based on fabricated and unfounded allegations nor will it force Iran to come down from its principal positions. Iran categorically deplores this resolution and will take appropriate action in response, the repercussions of which would be upon the sponsors of this resolution,” Gharibabadi said in a statement on Friday after the vote.

The resolution, submitted by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, was adopted by a vote of 25 to 2 with 7 abstentions. It comes at a time when the United States is working to extend an arms embargo against Iran.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi on Monday regretted that the IAEA has chosen to ignore Tehran's long history of cooperation, warning that a new resolution "would somehow complicate Iran’s cooperation with the agency”.

The Trump administration exited the deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, but other signatories vowed to salvage it.

Washington is now working to extend a UN-imposed arms embargo due to expire in October under Tehran’s nuclear deal.

According to the IAEA’s 129-page 2019 Safeguards Implementation Report, Iran received the biggest part of the inspections that were carried out worldwide by the atomic organization’s inspectors, and the figure stood at 21 percent of the entire visits made to various nuclear sites.

Following is the full text of the statement:

Madam Chairperson,

I would like to put on record the position of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the resolution just adopted.

At the outset, I would like to sincerely appreciate Russia, China, Azerbaijan, India, Mongolia, Niger, Pakistan, South Africa and Thailand for not supporting the Resolution, especially Russia and China for all their efforts in objecting this unconstructive path.

Considering the extensive level of constructive cooperation between Iran and the Agency and simply overlooking this level of cooperation, the adoption of this resolution aimed at requesting Iran to cooperate with the Agency is deeply disappointing.

It is also a deep regret that this resolution was presented by the three European States which have not taken any concrete practical step in the implementation of their obligations under the JCPOA. These lacks of willingness or inability to take practical actions in this regard, along with the unilateral, illegal, and destructive measures by the US caused the future of the JCPOA to remain gloomy. Our advice to the E2+1 States is that if they cannot do something to save the deal, they can at least avoid making the situation more complicated and difficult! Paradoxically, your lack of action was needed here, which it seems that you couldn’t even do this.

It is noteworthy that we consider the current state of affairs as a trap set by the US and Israeli regimes, who in the past two years, not only spared no efforts to destroy the JCPOA, but also used all tools of pressure on the Agency including through the presentation of such baseless allegations, to deflect the ongoing appropriate course of cooperation and divert the attention from their non-compliance with their relevant international obligations, or being stayed out of the most important international instruments on disarmament and arms control.