IAEA Chief in Tehran

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano visited Iran today and held talks with President Hassan Rouhani, Chairman of the Atomic Eneragy Organization of Iran (AEIO) Ali Akbar Salehi, and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. IAEA said in a press release that the discussions were held on the implementation of the Joint Statement on a Framework for Cooperation, which was signed with Iran in November 2013. AEIO’s Salehi said the talks centered on Iran’s experiments with Exploding Bridge Wire detonators, the EBWs. The device could be used to trigger explosion in a nuclear weapon.

The discussions between IAEA and Iran are a separate track of talks from negotiations between Iran and six major powers on the future of Iran’s nuclear program. The agency has asked Iran to provide information and explanations to assess Iran’s sated need or application for the development of EBWs.

“The Agency will need to consider all past outstanding issues, including EBWs, integrating all of them in a system and assessing as a whole… In order to resolve all outstanding issues, past and present, it is very important that the Framework for Cooperation continues to be implemented,” said IAEA in a press release after Amano’s talks in Tehran today.

President Rouhani said Iran was determined to forge an accord with the IAEA in “the shortest possible time span.” (Twitter, @HassanRouhani, 17 August)

Fars News Agency reported that Rouhani said in his meeting with Amano that Iran had no fears of cooperation to “obviate the ambiguities” regarding the EBW issue.

“The use of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) has no room in Iran’s defensive doctrine based on the codes of ethics and within the framework of religion and the fatwa issued by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution,” Rouhani said. (Fars News Agency, 17 August)

Photo credit: IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano (l.) with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran, 17 August 2014. (Mohammad Ali Marizad/Fars News Agency)