US ‘Acknowledged’ Tehran is Not Seeking to Create a Nuclear Bomb, Iranian Foreign Minister Says

Iran has rejected a resolution adopted by the IAEA’s Board of Governors (BoG) censuring it for not disclosing the site of three uranium enrichment facilities. Tehran claims that the IAEA’s findings are based on inputs from Israel, as the agency’s director general Rafael Grossi met the Israeli PM in Tel Aviv this month.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has claimed that the US and its Western allies have “acknowledged” that Tehran isn’t looking to build a nuclear bomb.

“The United States and the West know that the atomic bomb has no place in Iran's Islamic beliefs,” Abdollahian remarked during an address to Indian Islamic scholars in New Delhi, as per a video released by Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday. The visiting Iranian FM was speaking through a Hindi translator.

The foreign minister kickstarted his maiden three-day visit to India on Wednesday, meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on the opening day.

“The West once acknowledged in the nuclear talks that they could ignore all their problems with Iran's nuclear programme as long as Iran stopped supporting Palestine and recognised Israel,” Abdollahian remarked at the gathering.

“With such incorrect excuses, the West sought the recognition of Israel by the Islamic Republic of Iran in order to achieve their goals, which, of course, failed,” the top Iranian diplomat added.

Abdollahian declared that in spite of the Western countries’ appeals, Iran remained steadfast in supporting "the cause of Palestine".

“Iran considers it its religious and moral duty to support the liberation of Holy Quds (Jerusalem) and is fully committed to it,” added the dignitary.

Abdollahian told his audience that he wanted to give them a sense of ongoing negotiations between Tehran and Western powers, seeking to bring the US back into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Iran Nuclear Deal.

Former US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled Washington from the pact in 2018, but his successor Joe Biden has indicated his willingness to reverse the controversial decision.

Tehran Slams US, EU Allies for ‘Political Resolution’

The Iranian Foreign Minister’s remarks came hours after the 35-member Board of Governors (BoG) of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling upon Tehran to take “urgent steps” to comply with the IAEA’s nuclear safeguards.

The resolution was co-sponsored by the US and the E3 allies—Germany, the United Kingdom and France. Russia and China were the only countries which opposed the resolution, while three nations, including India, abstained from the IAEA vote.

The resolution was floated after a report this month from IAEA’s Director General Rafael Grossi claimed the “presence of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at Turquzabad, Varamin and Marivan”.

Grossi has said that the three sites weren’t previously disclosed under ‘Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol’ negotiated between Tehran and IAEA in March.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has rejected the resolution as “political, incorrect and unconstructive action”.

“The adoption of the resolution, which is based on the hasty and unbalanced report of the Director General of the IAEA and based on the Zionist regime’s false and fabricated information, will only weaken the process of Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Tehran has claimed that the locations cited by the IAEA DG had been cleared by the agency “once and for all” in December 2015 and weren’t supposed to be covered under the March 2022 pact.

In response to Grossi’s report and the subsequent resolution, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) said in a statement on Wednesday that Tehran has “shut down two of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) cameras installed beyond safeguards".

“Of course, over 80% of the IAEA's existing cameras are safe and will continue to work as before,” the agency said.