IAEA Board of Governors, September 2022

Joint statement on NPT Safeguards Agreement

with the Islamic Republic of Iran

Thank you Chair.

I am delivering this statement on behalf of a group of 56 member states from all

regional groups including all EU member states.

These 56 states are: Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Burundi,

Canada, Croatia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark,

Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary,

Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Latvia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania,

Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway,

Peru, Portugal, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore,

Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Arab

Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, and Yemen.

Chair, recalling this Board’s resolution contained in GOV/2022/34 which was

adopted on 8 June 2022, we are collectively and seriously concerned by the DG’s

latest report contained in GOV/2022/42: This report concludes once again that

the safeguards issues related to three undeclared locations in Iran remain

outstanding due to insufficient substantive cooperation by Iran with the Agency.

Chair, we would like to reiterate that the resolution adopted in June by this

Board of Governors,

- „Emphasiz[ed] the essential and independent role of the IAEA in verifying

Iran’s compliance with its safeguards obligations“,

- „strongly support[ed] the Agency’s continued efforts aimed at providing

assurance of the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme“

- „Express[ed] profound concern that the safeguards issues related to three

undeclared locations remain outstanding due to insufficient substantive

cooperation by Iran, despite numerous interactions with the Agency.“

- „Call[ed] upon Iran to act on an urgent basis to fulfil its legal obligations

and, without delay, take up the Director General’s offer of further

engagement to clarify and resolve all outstanding safeguards issues.“

- „Not[ed] that the provision by Iran of all of the technically credible

information, documents and evidence the IAEA requires to make its

assessments is essential for the Secretariat to be in position to report the

issues as no longer outstanding and thereby remove the need for the

Board’s consideration and action on these issues.“

Three months later, we note with serious concern that „the Director General is

increasingly concerned that Iran has not engaged with the Agency on the

outstanding safeguards issues (…) and, therefore, that there has been no

progress towards resolving them“, despite the IAEA’s stated readiness „to

engage with Iran without delay to resolve all of these issues“. Consequently, the

Director General concludes that „the Agency is not in a position to provide

assurance that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful“.

The Director General emphasized „once again that the[se] unresolved

safeguards issues stem from Iran’s obligations under the Comprehensive

Safeguards Agreement between Iran and the Agency“. In this spirit, we call upon

Iran to act immediately to fulfil its legal obligations and, without delay, take up

the Director General’s offer of further engagement to clarify and resolve all

outstanding safeguards issues.

We request the Director General to continue to report to the Board of Governors

so long as the above issues remain outstanding.

Thank you, Chair.