IAEA says holds no political stance against Iran

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TEHRAN, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) denied that the agency has upheld any political stance against Iran, Iran's Press TV reported Wednesday.

"In fact, with Iran (and) the decisions it took, we never had a political stance on them. We simply continued to do our technical job," Rafael Grossi said in an exclusive interview with Press TV in Tehran.

When asked about the situation created by the U.S. unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement and its reimposition of sanctions against Iran, Grossi said the IAEA has a specific technical mandate under the deal to verify the observance or not of "certain measures."

The IAEA, the official noted, does not take political positions concerning Iran, the United States, Israel, or any other country.

Iranian officials have repeatedly called the IAEA to keep a "technical" approach in its relations with Iran, when responding to Grossi's statements to the media concerning the need to reinstate all IAEA monitoring of Iran's nuclear activities as established by the 2015 deal.

Iran started gradually reducing the implementation of its commitments to the agreement one year after the United States abandoned the deal and reimposed sanctions against Iran.

In his interview, Grossi also dismissed any responsibility of the IAEA concerning the leakage of information about Iranian nuclear activities collected by the agency that may have had a role in facilitating sabotage actions against nuclear facilities in Iran.

"Information is distributed to all recipients. If there is one recipient that leaks the information, I don't see how you can indicate that the agency could in any conceivable way be responsible for the leakage of information," he said.

Grossi said an NPT Review Conference will soon meet in January 2022, adding he was "certain that there will be another call for universality" of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on the occasion.

Grossi travelled to Iran on Monday evening and met Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Mohammad Eslami on Tuesday over outstanding issues between Iran and the IAEA, in the run-up to the Vienna nuclear talks scheduled to resume on Nov. 29. Enditem

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