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Roundup: IAEA urges Iran for cooperation to settle remaining issues

Xinhua, September 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Sunday called for Iran's full cooperation over the remaining outstanding issues pertaining to the country's nuclear program, official IRNA news agency reported.

Visiting IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said the best time has come to settle Iran's nuclear issue, as the confidence of the international community could be built towards Iran's nuclear program through the full cooperation of the country.

Iran and the IAEA agreed on a roadmap in July to resolve the remaining issues over the country's nuclear activities, and so far significant steps have been taken to accomplish it, Amano said.

Amano welcomed Iran's decision to implement the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a positive gesture, saying that Iran's planned execution of the protocol will be instrumental to lay out peaceful nature of the country's nuclear program to the world, according to Press TV.

He also expressed the hope that the remaining issues would be solved by the deadline of Dec. 15. "This process (of implementing the roadmap) is not open-ended."

As for the Iranians' concerns over the closure of intelligence about Iran's nuclear program, he said that the IAEA respects the confidential information about the nuclear activities of its member states, and seriously sticks to it.

On Sunday, Amano met Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif and head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi.

His discussions with Iranian officials focused on the implementation of the roadmap to resolve all past and present outstanding issues regarding Iran's nuclear activities.

They also discussed the means to monitor and verify Iran's implementation of the agreement with the world powers under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran expects the IAEA to be "fair" in monitoring the implementation of the Islamic Republic's nuclear agreement with the P5+1 group, including Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany, Press TV reported.

"In implementing the JCPOA, we will voluntarily execute the additional protocol and we hope that you will supervise the implementation of the JCPOA agreement fairly," Rouhani said in a meeting with Amano.

The IAEA will have an "influential role" to play in the implementation of Iran's nuclear agreement with the global powers, reached in Vienna in July, he was quoted as saying.

"We hope that the IAEA will also step up its operations in the coming months with regard to helping scientific progress in (member) countries including Iran," Rouhani said.

IAEA is tasked with monitoring the nuclear activities of countries in a bid to prevent any diversion on the one hand and helping countries "benefit from cutting-edge peaceful nuclear technology" on the other, he said.

For his part, Amano said that the IAEA will draw up its reports on Iran's nuclear program impartially and based on realities.

The UN nuclear watchdog is interested in concluding outstanding issues with Iran through dialogue, he added.

On Sunday, the spokesman of Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said that Amano also visited Parchin military site and some workshops in the neighbourhood of the site about which false information had been released.

Parchin military site is located in the southeast of capital Tehran. Western intelligence agencies have claimed that Iran might have conducted secret nuclear tests with possible military dimensions in Parchin. Iran has strongly denied the allegations.

Amano's visit to Tehran came as the IAEA is racing to implement an agreement reached in mid-July between Iran and the world powers to resolve Iran's nuclear standoff.

Under the agreement, Iran would improve the transparency of its nuclear plan while freezing some of its nuclear activities in exchange for sanction relief.

The P5+1 countries want strengthened monitoring measures to ensure that Tehran complies with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and its commitment to the comprehensive nuclear agreement. Endit