Tehran 24 Aug (Online): Iran will not allow inspections beyond what is in a 2015 nuclear deal, the country\u2019s nuclear chief said on Wednesday, as the United States prepares to respond to a proposal to revive Tehran\u2019s nuclear deal with world powers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are committed to inspections in the framework of the nuclear deal that are linked to nuclear restrictions which we have accepted in the past\u2026 Not one word more, not one word less,\u201d said Mohammad Eslami, head of Iran\u2019s Atomic Energy Organisation, according to a video carried by state media.<\/p>\n
A senior US official told Reuters on Monday that Iran has dropped some of its main demands on resurrecting the deal to rein in Tehran\u2019s nuclear programme, including its insistence that international inspectors close some probes of its atomic program, bringing the possibility of an agreement closer.<\/p>\n
But Eslami appeared to contradict that, saying the probes should be closed \u201cbefore the implementation day\u201d if the 2015 nuclear deal is revived, the state news agency IRNA reported.<\/p>\n
Washington aims to respond soon to a draft agreement proposed by the European Union that would bring back the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that former President Donald Trump abandoned and current President Joe Biden has sought to revive.<\/p>\n
Iran has insisted the nuclear pact can only be salvaged if the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) drops its claims about Tehran\u2019s nuclear work. Washington and other Western powers view Tehran\u2019s demand as outside the scope of reviving the deal.<\/p>\n
In June, the UN nuclear watchdog\u2019s 35-nation Board of Governors overwhelmingly passed a resolution, drafted by the United States, France, Britain and Germany, which criticised Iran for failing to explain uranium traces found at three undeclared sites.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Eslami repeated Iran\u2019s assertion that claims of unexplained uranium traces were perpetrated by exiled Iranian dissidents and Iran\u2019s arch-enemy Israel, IRNA reported.<\/p>\n
In response to the resolution, Iran expanded further its underground uranium enrichment by installing cascades of more efficient advanced centrifuges and also by removing essentially all the IAEA\u2019s monitoring equipment installed under the 2015 deal.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Nour News, a website affiliated with Tehran\u2019s top national security body, rejected Washington\u2019s assertion that Iran had dropped some of its main demands.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Americans are seeking to suggest that Iran has retreated in the talks but\u2026 it was Washington that had left the nuclear deal and it is the US government that has retreated to its previous positions if it returns to the accord,\u201d Nour News said on Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tehran 24 Aug (Online): Iran will not allow inspections beyond what is in a 2015 nuclear deal, the country\u2019s nuclear chief said on Wednesday, as the United States prepares to respond to a proposal to revive Tehran\u2019s nuclear deal with world powers. \u201cWe are committed […]<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"yoast_head":"\n