Dear Mr. Chairman,

We have carefully reviewed the IAEA Director General's report "NPT Safeguards Agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran". We would like to point out that we found nothing in it that could be interpreted as a request to the Board of Governors for additional instructions or emergency actions, such as the adoption of a resolution. We also did not hear any requests to this effect from the IAEA Director General.

On the contrary, the report clearly shows that, even in the current extremely challenging circumstances, the IAEA Secretariat and Iran are finding common ground that allows for the continued application of safeguards in Iran. During the reporting period, Tehran granted Agency inspectors access to sites not affected by the unlawful and unprovoked US and Israeli strikes in June. Moreover, the report acknowledges that the difficult situation that has arisen following these attacks necessitates Iran and the IAEA to work together constructively to fulfill its obligations under the Safeguards Agreement. It emphasizes that Iran has begun to cooperate in this process. The Director General reaffirms his commitment to working with Tehran to ensure compliance with the Safeguards Agreement, taking into account Iran's relevant domestic legislation.

Looking ahead, we note that for the four Board of Governors member countries that introduced the latest anti-Iran resolution - the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, and France - none of this matters. They have their own destructive goals both against Iran and within the Board of Governors.

Unfortunately, the remaining serious flaws in the Director General's report also provide fertile ground for these malicious actions. Chief among these is the lack of a clear and unequivocal condemnation of the Israeli and US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards. It must be acknowledged that the Agency - both its Member States collectively and the Secretariat - has been unable to formulate an appropriate response to these illegal actions for five months now. It seems as if the deliberate destruction of peaceful nuclear facilities is becoming the norm. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of the military strikes and their accomplices, who publicly justified the attacks as "dirty work", now, taking advantage of their complete impunity, continue to raise the stakes and pursue further escalation.

The Russian Federation reiterates its strong condemnation of the US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards. These are irresponsible and aggressive actions that violate international law, the UN, and the IAEA Charters. Their grave consequences for the IAEA safeguards system and the NPT have yet to be assessed.

These strikes are the root cause of the current difficult situation with the implementation of the Safeguards Agreement in Iran. The reality is that the Iranian sites attacked were under constant Agency monitoring and raised no concerns regarding the non-diversion of nuclear material. Not to mention that they were all part of the JCPOA. All of these facilities were regularly inspected, and Agency inspectors worked there continuously, even though the US and Israel also put their lives at risk. Furthermore, IAEA equipment was located there, which was destroyed. Incidentally, we have never received information from the Secretariat regarding the extent of the material damage inflicted. In this context, we also note the absence in the Director General's report of information previously published by the Secretariat in its operational reports regarding the scale and nature of the destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities. We are convinced that the inclusion of this information, even if only preliminary, would have allowed delegations to at least roughly understand the scope of work that Iranian specialists must undertake to address the chemical and radiological consequences, to assess the condition of the facilities, and to inventory the nuclear material stored there.

Dear Mr. Chairman,

Despite the ongoing difficulties in accessing the damaged sites, as a result of the important agreement reached in Cairo on September 9, the Secretariat and Iran were able to develop modalities that allowed for some inspections to be carried out in locations undamaged by the attacks and where inspection conditions remained intact. We believe this was a good start for normalizing the application of IAEA safeguards. At the same time, the scope of verification activities in Iran has gradually expanded.

Nonetheless, all this is being ignored by the biased Western countries. As part of its policy of further escalating the situation around Iran, the E3 has taken the illegitimate step of invoking a mechanism in the UN Security Council to reinstate all previously revoked Security Council sanctions resolutions - the so-called "snapback". We have repeatedly substantiated the legal and procedural invalidity of these actions by the E3: due to the manipulations undertaken by Berlin, London, and Paris and their previous violations of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, they have lost the right to invoke the "snapback". This illegal step, by definition, cannot impose any legal obligations on bona fide participants in the international community, including the IAEA.

Now the E3 and the United States are proposing that the Board of Governors adopt yet another anti-Iran resolution. This systematically fueled hysteria surrounding the Iranian nuclear program is completely inappropriate, counterproductive, and irrelevant to the goals and objectives of nuclear nonproliferation. While the Americans and Europeans verbally advocate for negotiations, their behavior demonstrates a lack of interest in resolving the substantive issues that supposedly concern them. These countries, particularly the E3, have repeatedly and deliberately undermined any efforts by the IAEA Director General to find a solution. Moreover, these steps are devoid of any strategy, tactics, or political vision. EU3 diplomacy has long since lost sight of its own goals, objectives, and interests regarding Iran, becoming a tool of US policy.

The proposed draft resolution completely ignores the root of the current problem - American-Israeli aggression. Therefore, there should be no doubt about the true purpose of this document: to post-factum whitewash the actions of the United States and Israel, to obscure the fact that they torpedoed the IAEA's verification activities in Iran, and to transfer the failed "snapback" initiatives to the Board of Governors. This is arbitrary and a gross distortion of the facts.

On October 18, all provisions of UNSC Resolution 2231 ceased to be effective. The IAEA Secretariat, following the requirements of the Board of Governors' consensus resolution of December 15, 2015, removed the item on verification and monitoring in Iran from the agenda of this decision-making body in light of UNSC Resolution 2231. The co-sponsors of the draft resolution, however, with their hastily prepared text, place the Agency in an awkward position. What, in their opinion, should the Director General report on if Iran has already fully complied with all the requirements of the IAEA Board of Governors resolutions that existed prior to the JCPOA and on which the UN Security Council resolutions were based, and all outstanding questions for Tehran have been clarified? The draft resolution forces the IAEA safeguards process into a paradoxical and therefore dangerous situation.

However, it is clear that the resolution's co-sponsors are not at all concerned about the problems their draft creates. It seems they are deliberately provoking Tehran into a harsh response in order to stymie the Director General's efforts to establish dialogue with Iran in the interests of implementing the Safeguards Agreement. Moreover, the co-sponsors have chosen to ignore the Director General's calls in the information document on the JCPOA he prepared for the current session for the development of a framework agreement among interested countries for a diplomatic resolution to the situation surrounding Iran's nuclear program. Incidentally, this summary by the Director General clearly illustrates how the unbridled political ambitions of the United States and the E3 have destroyed a well-functioning agreement, which remains the only effective mechanism for a comprehensive resolution of the situation surrounding the Iranian nuclear program that takes into account the fundamental interests of all stakeholders. Despite all the lofty promises, no one has yet been able to offer anything better.

The Russian Federation refuses to be complicit in yet another escalatory step against Iran at the IAEA. The destructive consequences of such a decision are crystal clear to us, and we call on all Member States to soberly assess what Western countries are once again foisting upon them in a "take it or leave it" format. This is not just about the Iranian nuclear program per se, but about the consistent transformation of the IAEA safeguards system into a weapon against undesirable countries.

We are putting the draft resolution to a vote and will vote against it. We call on all responsible Member States to do the same in order to preserve space for further constructive work between the Agency's Director General and Iran.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.