Iravani made the comments on Friday, addressing the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly dedicated to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s latest report on the country.
The envoy opened his remarks by asserting that the IAEA had to remain “professional, factual, and free from political influence,” warning that its credibility depended on strict impartiality.
Nuclear energy, he added, was indispensable to national development, and access to peaceful nuclear technology under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was an “inalienable right” that must not be curtailed under any pretext.
The official noted that safeguards were meant to enable peaceful nuclear activities, not obstruct them, and condemned entrenched double standards that restricted developing nations, while granting political, military, and nuclear cover to the Israeli regime, a non-NPT entity possessing an undeclared arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
“These practices do not protect non-proliferation,” he said. “They erode it, and they fundamentally undermine the agency’s technical cooperation mandate.”
The ambassador then turned to the unprovoked and illegal Israeli-American strikes on Iran’s safeguarded nuclear facilities between June 13 and 25, which amounted to “an unprecedented act of aggression.”
According to Iravani, “the Israeli regime, only hours after a politically-motivated resolution in the IAEA Board of Governors, launched massive military strikes” on fully monitored facilities, killing and injuring thousands of Iranians.
On June 22, the United States joined the assault, directly targeting IAEA-supervised sites in clear violation of the United Nations Charter, international law, the IAEA Statute, and UN Security Council Resolution 487, he added.
“This was not merely an attack on Iran,” he said. “It was an assault on the authority of the United Nations and on the integrity of the safeguards system itself.”
Iravani criticized both the agency’s officials and the Security Council for failing to condemn the attacks, despite decades of General Conference resolutions affirming that nuclear facilities must never be targeted under any circumstances.
Reaffirming the Islamic Republic’s long-standing commitment to the NPT, he rejected Western allegations regarding Iran’s compliance. He said the United States and the European trio of the UK, France, and Germany (E3) had repeatedly echoed “Israeli regime fabrications” concerning the Islamic Republic’s peaceful nuclear energy program, while ignoring Tel Aviv’s own nuclear arsenal and refusal to submit to international oversight.
He stressed that, in addition to fully complying with the NPT and its safeguards obligations, Iran has never violated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 nuclear agreement between the Islamic Republic and world powers, including the United States and the E3.
Citing the IAEA’s own reports, he said Tehran’s temporary suspension of cooperation with the agency had stemmed solely from the military strikes. He called for a new international framework to protect nuclear facilities and personnel from armed attacks, warning that the credibility of the entire global safeguards system depended on such protections.
Iravani, meanwhile, reminded that the Islamic Republic and the IAEA had achieved progress through a September 9 memorandum of understanding signed in Cairo, which established procedures to resume cooperation under post-attack conditions. But, he said, this progress was jeopardized by renewed hostility from the US and Europe, including the E3’s attempt to trigger so-called “snapback” sanctions against the country. Tehran considers the recourse to “snapback” to be legally void after legal expiration on October 18 of Resolution 2231 that had endorsed the JCPOA.
The envoy’s remarks came as the IAEA prepares to present a new report that seeks to estimate Iran’s enriched-uranium stockpile using pre-attack data, while avoiding any judgment on the Israeli-US strikes or assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists during the June aggression.
The report also fails to address the agency’s own role in enabling the Israeli-American assault through its earlier Board of Governors’ resolution, and makes no mention of the E3’s unlawful attempt to invoke the “snapback” mechanism.
Iravani closed his address by rebuffing continued attempts at threats and coercion against the Islamic Republic, underscoring, “We respond only to respect, legality, and equality.”
