Iranian Negotiator Salehi: We Have Reached Understandings with the IAEA about the PMD; Technical Issues Are Now Being Resolved on a Political Level

In an Iranian TV interview, negotiator Ali-Akbar Salehi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, said that Iran had "reached understandings with the IAEA" on the issue of the Possible Military Dimension (PMD). He said: "Now there is political backing [of the P5+1], and the [PMD] issue should be resolved." Salehi further said that the IAEA could no longer act independently on this matter, as it had done in the past. The interview was broadcast on the IRIB TV channel on July 21, 2015.

Following is a transcript of Salehi's comments:

Salehi:By December 15, at the end of the year, the issue (of the PMD) should be determined. The IAEA will submit its report to the board of governors. It will only submit it. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action will continue independently of the results of this report. We have reached understandings with the IAEA. God willing, there will be very positive results. We do not accept the PMD issue, the (suspicions against) Iran's past (military nuclear) activity. We are resolving this in a political-technical framework, in order to deny them any pretext. Look, if it was decided that the (IAEA) will not be convinced no matter what... As the saying goes: If someone pretends to be asleep, you cannot wake him up. If someone does not want to be convinced, it does not matter how hard you try. You tell him that it is daytime, and he tells you that it's night. If the IAEA was not meant to be convinced in the regular track, it would never be convinced, regardless of what we did. They presented 18 questions, we answered them (but couldn't convince them), and there is nothing more that could be done. Now that the technical issues are being resolved on the political level, the pace has picked up. The technical issues are now being resolved in a political framework. They have set a time frame and, God willing, the issue must be resolved by December 15.

Interviewer: But considering the IAEA's bad record regarding...

Salehi:In short, they will be the losers. As I have said, the issue has received political backing. The work of (the IAEA) must be reasonable. They cannot do anything unreasonable. When there is no political backing, they do whatever they want, but now there is political backing, and the issue should be resolved, and God willing, it will be.