UN nuclear watchdog chief says Iran playing by the rules

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog said today that Iran was abiding by the rules set out in a nuclear accord it signed with six world powers in 2015, after Washington suggested it was not adhering to the deal.

The State Department must notify Congress every 90 days of Iran’s compliance with the deal. The next deadline is October and US President Donald Trump has said he thinks by then the United States will declare Iran non-compliant.

Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Iran had not broken any promises and was not receiving special treatment.

“The nuclear-related commitments undertaken by Iran under the [deal] are being implemented,” he said in the text of a speech to a quarterly meeting of the IAEA’s 35-member Board of Governors.

Read: We will not allow inspections of facilities that do not fall within Nuclear Agreement says Iran 

Most sanctions on Iran were lifted 18 months ago under the deal and, despite overstepping a limit on its stocks of one chemical, it has adhered to the key limitations imposed on it.

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In April, Trump ordered a review of whether a suspension of sanctions on Iran related to the nuclear deal, negotiated under President Barack Obama, was in the US national security interest. He has called it “the worst deal ever negotiated.”

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, travelled to Vienna last month to speak with Amano about Iran and asked if the IAEA planned to inspect Iranian military sites.