AFP

Iran confirmed Monday its readiness to continue cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency to remove "misconceptions" about its activities, after the agency warned that it was no longer able to "guarantee" the peacefulness of Tehran's nuclear program. "Iran has announced and announces that it is ready to continue constructive cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said in a press conference. He reiterated his country's readiness to "cooperate with the agency to remove false and unrealistic perceptions related to the peaceful nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic," but considered that this cooperation should be joint by both parties and come within "the scope of rights and duties as well." The agency confirmed in a report last Wednesday that it was unable to guarantee that "Iran's nuclear program is exclusively peaceful" in light of Tehran's failure to provide convincing answers about finding traces of nuclear material at three sites that it had not previously declared to have witnessed activities of this kind. The Director-General of the Agency, Rafael Grossi, expressed his feeling of "increasing concern" in light of the lack of progress in this file, which has been causing tension with Iran for months. This issue is one of the issues that complicates the course of talks between Iran and the major powers with the aim of reviving the agreement on Tehran's nuclear program. The 2015 agreement between Tehran and six international powers (Washington, Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing and Berlin) allowed the lifting of sanctions on the Islamic Republic in return for reducing its nuclear activities and ensuring the peace of its programme. However, the United States withdrew from it in 2018 under its former president, Donald Trump, re-imposing sanctions on Iran, which responded by beginning to gradually withdraw most of its commitments. Iran and the parties to the agreement, coordinated by the European Union and indirectly participating by the United States, began discussions to revive it in April 2021, which were suspended more than once, with points of disagreement remaining between Washington and Tehran. After the talks resumed in early August, the European Union announced that it had proposed to Washington and Tehran a "final" settlement formula. Tehran submitted its proposals to the European Union on the text, and Washington responded to them on the 24th of the same month. On the first of September, the United States confirmed that it had received a new Iranian response, considering it "not constructive", according to a spokesperson for its Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Westerners criticize Iran's request, before the agreement is reactivated, to close the file of undeclared sites, calling on Tehran to cooperate with the agency in order to close it. For its part, Tehran considers the issue "politicised" and wants to close it before the nuclear agreement is fully activated. In June, the agency's board of governors adopted a resolution criticizing Iran for its lack of cooperation, to which Tehran responded by suspending a number of the agency's surveillance cameras in some of its facilities. The Foreign Ministry spokesman's comments came as the agency's board of governors began a new quarterly meeting, starting on Monday. "According to our information, no draft resolution" against Iran was presented to this meeting, Kanani said, warning that "any repetition of an unconstructive step such as the one taken previously by the agency (in June) will have non-constructive repercussions." "We look forward to a constructive approach by the Agency and members of the Board of Governors. Despite this, the Islamic Republic will evaluate any reaction based on developments in the Agency," he added.