France, Germany, the UK and the US have issued a joint
statement following Iran's decision to withdraw the designation
of several IAEA inspectors.
The text of the following statement was released by the permanent
representatives to the IAEA of France, Germany, the United
Kingdom, and the United States in response to the IAEA Director
General’s Statement on Verification in Iran.
On Saturday, the IAEA Director General issued a public statement
noting that Iran has withdrawn the designation of several
experienced Agency inspectors, including its most experienced
experts with unique knowledge of uranium enrichment technology.
Iran’s actions will undermine the Agency’s ability to carry out
its safeguards mandate effectively. As the Director General makes
clear in his statement, Iran’s actions are another step in the
wrong direction and constitute an unnecessary blow to an “already
strained relationship between the IAEA and Iran”.
Iran continues to expand its nuclear activities. It is now also
deliberately hampering the normal planning and conduct of Agency
verification and monitoring activities in Iran required under
Iran’s NPT Safeguards Agreement. This is at a time when the IAEA
has serious, longstanding, and unresolved questions related to
undeclared nuclear materials and activities in Iran that Iran has
failed to address for more than four years. We join with, and
support, the Director General in strongly condemning this latest
Iranian “unprecedented and unilateral” measure that he reports
will have a severe impact on the Agency’s ability to conduct its
verification activities.
Iran must immediately reverse these inspector de-designations and
fully cooperate with the Agency to enable them to provide
assurances that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful.
France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States will
continue to stand in strong support of the IAEA and the
international safeguards verification regime on which the world’s
security relies.
In light of Iran’s actions, we will take note of any further
information on the impact of the inspector de-designations on the
Agency’s ability to fulfil its essential verification mandate in
Iran. We will respond based on further reporting from the
Director General.
