EU reiterates call on Iran to cooperate with IAEA

By Selen Temizer

ANKARA (AA) – The European Union has once again urged Iran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Sunday.

Borrell made the appeal during a phone conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

“I underlined again the EU's position on Iran's behavior: stop human rights violations, stop support to Russia's war of aggression, and stop unjustified detention of EU citizens,” Josep Borrell said on Twitter.

Amir-Abdollahian said on Twitter that they discussed Iran-EU ties, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, Iran-IAEA cooperation and developments in Ukraine.

Last November, Iran announced a decision to ramp up uranium enrichment at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant in response to a resolution passed by the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog.

At the time, Iran said it had begun enriching uranium to 60% purity at the facility and that two new centrifuge cascades, IR-2m and IR-4, were reviewed and operated at the Natanz nuclear facility in central Isfahan province.

Tensions between Tehran and the IAEA have heightened over the nuclear watchdog's probe into "uranium traces" found at three undeclared nuclear sites. Iran has dismissed the probe.

It has also led to a stalemate in indirect talks between Tehran and Washington to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, with on and off talks underway since April 2021.