Russia says Western pressure on Iran is undermining the IAEA's impartiality.
London, Irena. Russia has criticized Western countries for using the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to exert political pressure on Iran, warning that their actions undermine the agency's impartiality and heighten tensions over Tehran's peaceful nuclear program.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, said these things in an interview with the Russian newspaper Kommersant published on Sunday, ahead of the quarterly meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors.
Ulyanov said that the Western countries use the defense system as a political tool against countries they oppose, undermining its technical foundations and the principle of neutrality. According to him, Russia and similar countries are working to preserve the transparency and technical and legal credibility of the defense procedures.
The Russian diplomat also criticized the approach led by the West in the IAEA Board of Governors and the UN Security Council, saying that the political maneuvering of the Western majority in both bodies took precedence over real efforts to resolve the disputes with Iran.
Referring to the September decision by the IAEA Board of Governors that required inspectors access to all Iranian nuclear facilities, Ulyanov said the decision came at a time when Iran was repeatedly under military threats from the US and Israel. He warned that any attack on facilities hosting international inspectors could directly endanger their lives.
According to him, the US and the European troika of Britain, France and Germany used their numerical advantage in the Council of Governors to seek to refer the decision to the UN Security Council, a move which he said would only increase tensions without producing constructive results.