Topnews, Statements

08. March 2022

STATEMENT DELIVERED BY AMBASSADOR RAPULANE MOLEKANE, GOVERNOR/RESIDENT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA, AT THE IAEA BOARD OF GOVERNORS, 8 MARCH 2022, VIENNA AUSTRIA

AGENDA ITEM 5 (C): NPT SAFEGUARDS IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

Mr Chairperson

South Africa commends the Director General and his team, as well as the Islamic Republic of Iran for their continued engagement and for continuing to work on finding a way forward on these long outstanding issues.

As we have said many times before, safeguards implementation is a statutory and sacrosanct legal commitments under the NPT.  Therefore, the implementation of these obligations under safeguards agreements are set in stone and non-negotiable.

We look forward to receiving updates as the Agency and Iran progress in the implementation of the agreement reached over the weekend. We are hopeful that the Director General and the Agency’s efforts will yield positive outcomes and that Iran will be able to provide credible answers to these outstanding questions, so that the item can be removed from the Board’s agenda.

As we said before, South Africa knows that Iran has a partner in the IAEA that will work tirelessly to resolve these issues, and that the Agency will do so without politicising the matter and with the utmost professionalism and impartiality.

Mr Chair

The report mentions some important developments, among others that the IAEA has concluded that it has no additional questions regarding the location of the uranium metal. However, the matter is not completely resolved and we are hopeful that with continued dialogue this and other matters will be resolved soon.

With these few remarks, South Africa takes note of the report as contained in document GOV/2022/5

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