Iran Lashes Out at IAEA Chief for Remarks on 'New' Nuclear Deal

“As I said before, IAEA’s sole role is to monitor and verify the voluntary nuclear-related measures as detailed in the JCPOA and to provide regular factual updates in this regard. Presenting any assessment on how the commitments are implemented (e.g referring to breach),” Kazem Gharibabadi said in a strings of tweets on Thursday.

“(It) is absolutely beyond the mandate of the Agency and should be avoided. The IAEA played its part during negotiations on the JCPOA. The commitments of the parties and IAEA tasks have been delicately drafted and agreed and each side knows what to do to implement the deal,” he added.

“There would be no renegotiation on the Deal and in case of its revival, there is no necessity for a new document on the Agency’s role. It’s not needed to complicate the situation,” Gharibabadi said in a follow-up tweet.

The tweet came after Grossi in a recent interview said that reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers under US President-elect Joe Biden would require striking a new agreement.

He claimed there had been too many breaches for the agreement to simply fall back into place.

“I cannot imagine that they are going simply to say, ‘We are back to square one’ because square one is no longer there,” Grossi said.

The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and the Group (5+1) and endorsed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

However, US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled Washington out of the nuclear deal in May 2018 and reinstated the anti-Iranian sanctions that had been lifted by the deal.

As the remaining European parties have failed to fulfill their commitments to the accord and compensate for Washington’s absence, Iran moved in May 2019 to scale back its JCPOA commitments.