The United States has rejected an offer to conduct massive inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities in return for lifting sanctions, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday, accusing Washington of “not seeking dialogue”.
Under the nuclear deal of 2015, Iran must ratify a document known as the “Additional Protocol”, which provides for tougher inspections of its nuclear program eight years after signing the deal.
The document gives UN inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) more tools to verify that a nuclear program is peaceful.
“If the US is really seeking an agreement... Iran can make the additional protocol into law (in 2019) and (the US) at the same time bring a plan to the Congress and lift all illegal sanctions,” said foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi.
“But as we predicted it was rejected by them because we knew that they are not for talks or an agreement that would yield a proper result,” he told a news conference.
According to Mousavi, the proposal was made by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during a visit this month in New York to dismiss the idea of “Iran being against talks... (while) America is for dialogue.”
Tension between Tehran and Washington has grown since President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal last year, and his imposition of harsh sanctions against the Iranian regime.
Iran said in May it would not comply with some of the terms of its nuclear program in response to the US sanctions and threatened to take further steps if other signatories, including Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia, failed to circumvent the sanctions.
