IAEA Director General In Tehran For Talks With Top Officials

Tehran, Aug 17, IRNA – International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano arrived in Tehran early Sunday morning for consultations on Iran-IAEA cooperation within the last year signed Cooperation Framework Agreement with top Iranian officials. Iranˈs Permanent Ambassador to IAEA Reza Najafi had on Friday told IRNA about Amanoˈs upcoming visit of Tehran. ˈIn Amanoˈs previous visit, since he stayed in Iran for a very short while, he did not have an opportunity to meet President Hassan Rouhani, but he is scheduled to meet the president this time (on Sunday), holding the highest level Iran-IAEA talks since President Rouhani took office,ˈ he said. Before meeting the IRI President, the IAEA managing director will meet Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi. This is Amanoˈs 2nd visit of Iran ever since President Rouhani accepted responsibility. His first visit in November 2013 led to the signing of the Iran-IAEA Cooperation Framework Agreement. On November 11, 2013 Salehi and Amano signed a six article agreement based on which Iran had to take six practical steps within three months. The 2nd step in the framework of Iran-IAEA cooperation was taken on January 10, 2014 in the presence of Tero Varjoranta, IAEA Deputy Director General for Safeguards in Tehran. In that round of talks the two sides agreed on Iranˈs conducting of seven more practical moves up to May 15, 2014. On May 20, 2014, another IAEA delegation headed by Tero Varjoranta arrived in Tehran and met with Iranˈs Permanent Ambassador to the IAEA Reza Najafi. After holding several rounds of technical talks, Iran and the IAEA reviewed the achieved good progress in implementing those steps by Iran and issued a joint statement. In that statement it was also agreed that Iran will take five more practical steps by August 25, 2014 in the framework of bilateral cooperation. Thus, the Islamic Republic of Iran has thus far taken 13 practical steps in the new round of its cooperation with the IAEA and in accordance with the last year signed Cooperation Framework Agreement and is scheduled to take five more practical steps by September 4, 2014. Amanoˈs visit of Tehran and his meetings with high ranking Iranian officials is a sign for the ongoing close cooperation between Iran and the IAEA aimed at showing Tehranˈs good will and trust building about Iranˈs peaceful nuclear program. Earlier, the International Atomic Energy Agency had also confirmed in its latest report that Iran has complied with the interim nuclear accord clinched between Tehran and six world powers in November 2013 over Tehran’s nuclear energy program. It said the Islamic Republic has eliminated its most sensitive stockpile of enriched uranium gas under the nuclear accord. Iran and the sextet on November 24, 2013, signed an interim nuclear deal in the Swiss city of Geneva. The breakthrough agreement (the Joint Plan of Action), which came into effect on January 20, had given the parties extendable six months to draw up a comprehensive nuclear deal. In July and after nearly three weeks of intensive diplomatic negotiations in the Austrian capital of Vienna that began on July 2, Iran and the group of six world powers (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) agreed to keep holding talks on Tehran’s nuclear program for four more months. The parties decided to extend the nuclear talks until November 24 in the hope of clinching a final deal to resolve the decade-long standoff on Iran’s nuclear energy program./end