Tehran risks aggravating its nuclear row with the global community by deciding to suspend the implementation of the Additional Protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which allows the global watchdog to inspect Iran's nuclear facilities, Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th November, 2020) Tehran risks aggravating its nuclear row with the global community by deciding to suspend the implementation of the Additional Protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which allows the global watchdog to inspect Iran's nuclear facilities, Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said on Monday.
On Sunday, the Iranian parliament passed a bill, dubbed "The strategic measure for the removal of sanctions," aimed at revitalizing the country's nuclear activities in the wake of the assassination of Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The lawmakers require that the government remarkably boost the nuclear activities and halt the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol.
"The Additional Protocol is an essential element of the nuclear deal. It is the Additional Protocol, the document that provides confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program. If it ceases to function, the atmosphere around Iran will deteriorate sharply, nuclear activities in Iran will become much less transparent. There will be much more reasons for speculation and it may seriously aggravate the situation," Ulyanov said, as aired by the Rossiya 1 broadcaster.
According to him, this can sharply worsen the prospects for normalizing the situation around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, something the world had been hoping for as the Biden administration is expected to take the White House.
"We believe that the continuation of such an unprecedentedly large-scale IAEA verification activity in Iran meets, first of all, the interests of the country itself and the entire international community, so we would like to hope that the legislative and executive branches of [the Iranian] government will make carefully weighed decisions," the Russian envoy said.
Fakhrizadeh, the head of the ministry's innovation center, was killed in an attack near the northern Iranian town of Absard on Friday. According to media reports, the scientist was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun after he got out of his armored car. It came two days before the 10th death anniversary of another Iranian nuclear physicist, Majid Shahriari.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused Israel of being involved in the scientist's death and called on the international community to condemn the act. On Saturday, President Hassan Rouhani said that the crime would not go unanswered.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office told Sputnik that it would not comment on the Iranian statements regarding the Israeli engagement in Fakhrizadeh's assassination.
