Iran raises concern over Saudi nuclear activities

Tehran, Sept 20, IRNA – Iran tried to attract global attention for the first time at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting to the Safeguards concerns about Saudi nuclear activities, Iran's Ambassador to the Vienna-based international organizations Kazem Gharibabadi said on Sunday. Gharibabadi said in a briefing about the agenda of the meeting on Monday that the issue of the Saudi nuclear activities was widely covered by different world media. There were many questions on the very first day of the meeting by the reporters asking the IAEA director-general to discuss the agency’s plans for supervising the Saudi nuclear activities, the Iranian ambassador said. He said that there were more than 50 speeches delivered by representatives of the member states about the 2015 Iran nuclear deal – known as JCPOA. Except for statements by the United States, the Zionist regime and one or two Arab countries, the majority of other statements stressed the need to maintain the hard-won multilateral nuclear accord with Iran, Garibabadi said. The participants criticized the US unilateral exit from JCPOA, the ambassador added. He also appreciated a report by IAEA director-general following a visit to Tehran and a meeting with head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), saying the report was a professional one and based on the already reached agreements. Gharibabadi noted that the US, which sought another anti-Iran resolution in the IAEA Board of Governments meeting to be sent to the UN Security Council, failed to do so. The ambassador also said that the nuclear activities of the Zionist regime were also discussed in the meeting where the member states called for adoption of the Agency’s Safeguards Agreement and making the Middle East free from nuclear arms.