We, the Governments of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, welcome the IAEA Board of Governors’ adoption of a resolution responding to Iran’s insufficient cooperation with the IAEA on serious and outstanding safeguards issues relating to Iran’s obligations under its NPT-required safeguards agreement. The overwhelming majority vote at the IAEA Board of Governors today sends an unambiguous message to Iran that it must meet its safeguards obligations and provide technically credible clarifications on outstanding safeguards issues. Today’s resolution affirms the Board’s support for the independent, professional and impartial efforts of the IAEA to uphold the international safeguards system, which is essential to all of our security.

We urge Iran to heed the call of the international community to fulfil its legal obligations, and cooperate with the IAEA to fully clarify and resolve issues without further delay. If Iran does this and the Director General is able to report that the unresolved safeguards issues are no longer outstanding, we would see no need for further Board consideration and action on these issues.