MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th November, 2020) Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tuesday reiterated the agency's call on Iran to provide credible explanations regarding the discovery of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at an undeclared facility in Iran.
In November 2019, media reported, citing a confidential IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program, that uranium particles had been found at an undeclared facility in the Turquzabad district of Tehran.
"The presence of multiple uranium particles of anthropogenic origin, including isotopically altered particles, at a location in Iran not declared to the Agency still needs to be fully and promptly explained by Iran to allay any possible concerns about the correctness and completeness of its safeguards declarations," Grossi said at a briefing.
The information about the uranium particles emerged soon after Tehran launched the fourth stage of reducing its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in a bid to force European signatories to ensure Iran's interests amid the sanctions that Washington reinstated after withdrawing from the deal in May 2018.
"We believe that they need to give us information which is credible. What they are telling us from a technical point of view doesn't add up. So they need to clarify this. Given the time this has taken ... this is not an academic exercise so they need to explain why we found what we found. And explanations have not been satisfactory, as I've said," the IAEA chief stressed.
Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov told Sputnik in November 2019 that the discovery of uranium particles in a location in Iran that had not been declared to the nuclear watchdog had nothing to do with the JCPOA.
