Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expresses hope that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will play an effective role in resolving the nuclear issue.
Share It :
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (L) shakes hands with Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano in Tehran on November 11, 2013.
In a meeting with IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano in Tehran on Monday, Zarif expressed hope that the two sides would strengthen cooperation with the purpose of resolving certain issues and alleviating logical concerns.
He praised a joint statement signed between Iran and the UN nuclear agency and said Tehran has been cooperating with the IAEA for a long time and remained committed to its undertakings based on international regulations including the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi and the IAEA chief signed a joint statement in Tehran on Monday on a road map for more bilateral cooperation on the outstanding issues.
“We hope that through Iran’s new approach to improving and expanding cooperation with the agency, the body will play its effective and positive role well in resolving the ongoing issues and promoting the approach of dialog to find a final solution to the Iranian nuclear issue,” the Iranian minister stated.
He expressed Iran’s full readiness to fulfill its legal commitments within the framework of the NPT regulations and to help the IAEA chief carry out its duties.
Amano, for his part, said the IAEA shoulders a responsibility to monitor the nuclear activities of different countries including Iran.
He expressed hope that the agency could manage to resolve the outstanding issues and play its role to remove concerns through improving cooperation with Iran in line with the new joint statement.
Amano arrived in Tehran early on Monday for talks with Iranian officials which are separate form recent negotiations between Tehran and the six major world powers in the Swiss city of Geneva.
Speaking to reporters in Vienna before departing for Tehran, the IAEA chief expressed hope that his visit would lead to concrete results towards resolving “all outstanding issues to ensure Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.”
Talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Britain, France, China, Russia and the US -- plus Germany over Tehran’s nuclear energy program kicked off on November 7 and stretched into an unscheduled third day.
Iran and the six world powers have agreed to continue negotiations on November 20 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Iran and the UN nuclear agency wrapped up two days of negotiations in the Austrian capital, Vienna, on October 29, which was described afterwards by both sides as “very productive.”
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had presented the Islamic Republic’s new approach to its nuclear energy program in a meeting with Amano on October 28.
