Iran, IAEA issue joint statement on future cooperation

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a joint statement hours after IAEA inspectors and AEOI officials ended their latest round of talks on cooperation between Tehran and the UN watchdog agency. A team of IAEA inspectors, headed by Chief Inspector Tero Varjoranta, arrived in Tehran on Tuesday morning to discuss the steps already taken in the implementation of the 6-step agreement that the two sides held in November as well as a 7-article agreement that they signed a few months later. The IAEA and Iranian nuclear officials also discussed ways to continue cooperation. The following is the full text of the joint statement released a few hours after they ended their talks in Tehran on Wednesday. Joint Statement by Iran and IAEA On 20 May 2014 the IAEA and the Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran) held another technical meeting within the Framework for Cooperation agreed between the parties last November. During the meeting the two sides reviewed the good progress that had been made on the seven practical measures that were agreed three months ago. Iran and the Agency also reached agreement on five additional practical measures (see attached) to be implemented in the next step. Attachment Practical Measures in Relation to the Framework for Cooperation as Agreed on May 20, 2014 The Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreed on the following practical measures to be implemented, pursuant to the Framework for Cooperation, by Iran by 25 August 2014. 1. Exchanging information with the Agency with respect to the allegations related to the initiation of high explosives, including the conduct of large scale high explosives experimentation in Iran. 2. Providing mutually agreed relevant information and explanations related to studies made and/or papers published in Iran in relation to neutron transport and associated modeling and calculations and their alleged application to compressed materials. 3. Providing mutually agreed information and arranging a technical visit to a centrifuge research and development center. 4. Providing mutually agreed information and managed access to centrifuge assembly workshops, centrifuge rotor production workshops and storage facilities. 5. Concluding the safeguards approach for the IR-40 reactor. A few days before Iran and the six world powers agreed on a breakthrough interim deal in Geneva in November, Tehran and the IAEA signed a 6-step agreement. A few months later on February 8, the AEOI and the IAEA released a 7-article MoU on continued cooperation in future. The agreement contained Iran's voluntary cooperation untouched in the November Iran-IAEA agreement, known as the Tehran Declaration, in the form of the joint plan of action signed in late November between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany). The agreement included Tehran's voluntary cooperation in: 1-Providing (the IAEA) with administered access to Yazd’s Saghand Mine and the information agreed by the two sides, 2-Providing (the IAEA) with administered access to Ardakan enrichment facility the information agreed by the two sides, 3-Submitting updated design information questionnaire (DIQ) of Arak’s IR-40 reactor, 4-Adopting measures to materialize safeguard approach for Arak’s IR-40 reactor, 5-Arranging technical visit to Lashkarabad Laser Center and providing (the IAEA) with the information agreed by the two sides, 6-Providing source material, that has not reached the necessary composition and purity for making fuel or enrichment, including import of such material to Iran and extraction of uranium from phosphate by Iran, 7-Providing information and explanations to the IAEA to evaluate Iran’s statement on the need or application of Electron Bernstein waves (EBW) (new generation of safe fuses). Two days later on February 10, AEOI Behrouz Kamalvandi underlined that inspection of Iran's military sites was no part of the Tehran 7-Article agreement struck between the AEOI and the IAEA. “Inspection of Parchin (military site) is not within the framework of these seven steps,” Kamalvandi told reporters in Tehran then.