Published: 11:20, February 18, 2021 | Updated: 01:22, June 5, 2023
Iran ready to talk with IAEA but not renegotiate nuke deal
By Xinhua

This undated photo shows Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant. (Anna Kenare / AFP)

TEHRAN - Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Wednesday that Iran is ready for dialogue with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi but will not renegotiate the 2015 nuclear agreement.

"On Feb 23, the IAEA's oversight (of Iran's nuclear program) will be reduced, not stopped," Zarif told journalists after a cabinet meeting in the capital Tehran, official news agency IRNA reported.

Iran has acted in compliance with the IAEA's Safeguards agreements, "which are in fact the Agency's oversight standard," and will continue to do so after next week, he said.

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Iran's foreign minister once again rejected the possibility of any change to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

Grossi has requested to visit Iran in the coming days and the Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) is ready to confer with the IAEA head on the "modes" of the IAEA's oversight, the minister added.

When asked about whether the United States has the opportunity to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Zarif said the Biden administration has been at work for nearly a month now but it has been pursuing the Trump administration's policy of maximum pressure against Iran.

Regarding talks in the West about the possibility to introduce changes in the nuclear agreement, Iran's top diplomat noted that Iran did not like to be subject to limitations to its nuclear program or weapons purchases but still agreed to the JCPOA, rejecting again the possibility of changing the nuke deal.

Zarif reaffirmed that as soon as the United States returns to its commitments, Iran will do the same, adding this can be done in full and at once, or in a series of gradual steps taken by Washington and then by Tehran. 

Also on Wednesday, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani reiterated that the Islamic Republic's "definite" determination not to produce or store weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), including nuclear weapons, official news agency IRNA reported.

"As we have said many times, in our country's defense program, there is no place for weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, and this is a definite decision of the system," he said in a cabinet meeting in Tehran.

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Rouhani said this is not a new or recent decision, because Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and late Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani underlined nearly 30 years ago that Iran will not pursue nuclear weapons.