VIENNA, JUNE 8 – Italy is deeply concerned by the advancement of Iran‘s nuclear program and calls upon Teheran to restore full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) within the JCPOA and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Safeguards Agreement, the Italian Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna, Ambassador Alessandro Cortese, said today during the quarterly meeting of the Agency’s Board of Governors.
Italy supports both the constructive spirit and the content of E3+USA resolution adopted today by the Board, Cortese added. Drafted by the United States, UK, Germany and France, the document criticizes Iran for failing to fully address the nuclear agency’s questions over traces of uranium detected at locations that have not been declared nuclear sites. Russia and China voted against, India, Libya and Pakistan abstained, while the rest of the 35-member Board of Governors voted in favor.
The resolution expresses concern over “the presence of nuclear material at three undeclared Iranian sites”, demanding the country fully cooperate with the IAEA, and calls on Iran to “act on an urgent basis to fulfill its legal obligations and take up immediately the IAEA director general’s offer of further engagement to clarify and resolve all outstanding safeguards issues.”
Earlier this week, IAEA said that Iran was close to having a “significant quantity” of enriched uranium, meaning enough to make a nuclear weapon. “It’s a matter of just a few weeks,” Rafael Mariano Grossi, the U.N. agency’s director general, told the Board on Monday. But he went on to say that this did not mean Iran had already created such a weapon and stressed the importance of international inspectors having access to the country’s nuclear sites. (@OnuItalia)
