Iranian President Says Tehran's Nuclear Activities Legal, Under IAEA's Control

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi informed Russian legislators on Thursday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed that his nation's nuclear activities are legal and do not violate international law

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th January, 2022) Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi informed Russian legislators on Thursday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed that his nation's nuclear activities are legal and do not violate international law.

"The IAEA has confirmed that Iran's nuclear activities are carried out in accordance with the law and there are no violations," the president said, while speaking at the lower house of the Russian parliament.

According to Raisi, Tehran fully complies with its international obligations.

Raisi arrived in Moscow on Wednesday on a two-day state visit. The Iranian president met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The presidents discussed a raft of issues ranging from bilateral cooperation and implementation of joint projects in the trade and economic sphere to current international and regional topics and the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program.

In 2015, Iran signed a nuclear deal, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actions (JCPOA) with the P5+1 group, which includes the United States, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany and the European Union.

It required Tehran to scale back its nuclear program and drastically reduce its uranium reserves in exchange for sanctions relief, including the lifting of an arms embargo five years after the deal was made.

In May 2018, former US President Donald Trump withdrew the country from the JCPOA and reimposed sanctions on Iran, to which the latter responded with a gradual abandoning of its own commitments under the deal. Several packages of US sanctions against Iran have followed since then

Since April 2021, Vienna has been hosting talks aimed at preventing the Iran nuclear deal from failing altogether. After the change of power in the US, both parties agreed to try to restore the nuclear deal. The seventh round of Vienna talks on bringing Iran back to the nuclear deal and lifting US sanctions ended on December 17. The parties agreed on two drafts of the deal, which included provisions covering Iranian interests.

The eighth round of Vienna talks is currently underway.