Tehran declared Sunday that it will not hand over images from some Iranian nuclear sites to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as it claims the temporarily extended agreement had expired, meaning there is no need for it to do so.
“The agreement has expired… any of the information recorded will never be given to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the data and images will remain in the possession of Iran,” Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament said on Sunday, according to Reuters.
The United Nation’s nuclear watchdog explained on Friday that it had received no word from the Islamic Republic over the possible extension of that temporary agreement, which expired on Thursday.
The IAEA’s often outmaneuvered director-general Rafael Grossi maintained that he had written to Tehran on June 17, demanding an immediate response regarding whether intended to abide by the current agreement.
Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi, tweeted an evasive statement about the data recording being a “political decision” and was not considered – in Tehran at least – as a binding obligation.
The Iranians are currently locked in delicate indirect talks with the United States regarding the latter’s potential return to 2015’s Iran nuclear deal. Tehran has already claimed that more than 1,000 Trump-era sanctions have been removed and it continues to be extremely difficult to pin down as both sides claim and counter-claim about the timeframe to renew the agreement.
Source » i24news