Iran’s nuclear issue should be resolved through dialogue and there is as yet no evidence from its declared activities about any attempt to make a bomb, Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano told journalists after meeting a delegation headed by Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai.
Dr. Amano said he would continue the dialogue with Iran and hope that both sides can report positive results after the next meeting in June.
Describing the Iran nuclear issue as “very complicated,” Dr. Amano said one essential element was very simple — Iran would have to fully implement the Comprehensive Safeguard Agreement and other relevant obligations.
Iran has a safeguard agreement with the IAEA and is subject to U.N. Security Council resolutions which are legally binding.
“This is the standard. In light of this standard, I can say that declared activities and material of Iran are staying in peaceful purposes, but as Iran is not implementing UNSC resolutions and the part of the Safeguard Agreement, we cannot give assurance that everything is for peaceful purposes,” he said.
Asked what should be done in this situation, Dr. Amano said though IAEA and Iran had been intensifying dialogue since November 2011 and tried to clarify the issues through dialogue and agreement, the two sides had not yet reached agreement and no concrete result was achieved.
“This is not a good situation. So before the March Board of Governors meeting of the IAEA, we have thought and I stated in the Board of Governors meeting in Vienna that we have to work on this issue with a sense of urgency and the agreement must be in accordance with the effective verification practice,’’ he said.
