 Good afternoon, everybody, of our company's press conference. The DG will be happy to take the questions. Thank you very much. It's very good to see you. Let's gain time and allow you to go straight to whatever questions you may have. Thank you very much. Hi, DG. Can you hear me? OK. There are two things happening at the same time here. On the one hand, you've recently come back from Tehran with a deal that you say creates a window of opportunity for diplomacy. On the other hand, there are discussions about a resolution criticizing Iran here largely based on your last reports, which Iran and Russia say will only complicate efforts to revive the deal, so the very diplomacy that you've tried to create a window for. How do you feel about both of these things, especially about the discussions going on about a resolution and the board? I will do something I never do. I will answer with a question. What do you mean by what is further complicating a resolution or my reports? So Russia is saying that passing a resolution would further complicate the efforts to revive the deal. Well, thank you for the question. I think that the passing of a resolution is in the domain of member states. It's something the director general is impartial. This is a resolution normally expresses the opinion of countries about things that we are reporting about. My appeal to all is to have constructive discussions and to preserve the work of the agency. For me, that is important. Of course, there will always be opinions on the impact of what is going on. At this point in time, there are many things influencing, as you know, the Iran issue. There are consultations. There are the capitals. There is this process. There is the JCPOA process. And of course, people will have views on how one thing impacts the other, like a kaleidoscope. And I would not get into that. What I hope is that the work of the agency will be preserved. This is essential. Then if I may follow on quickly. Please. You just focusing on the window of opportunity for diplomacy. You've said there is a small window of opportunity of three months created through your efforts. You've seen Iran's latest statement about not wanting to take up an invitation to Brussels. How do you feel the diplomacy is going? Well, it's not an easy moment. This is clear. I should weigh my words very carefully, because as I said just now, these are national positions. But we all know that what's at stake is quite serious. So what we see is a complex situation in front of us. And again, to go again to my point, I think anything that will happen and any way forward must be one where what we do from the agency is indispensable. You may go one way or the other way, but without the inspection work, nothing is really based on a safe foundation. This is why I'm worrying about this and this is why I'm saying to you and to the board just a few minutes ago, I said that the inspection work of the IAEA must be preserved. The inspection work of the IAEA should not be put in the middle of a negotiating table as a bargaining chip. What you can bargain is about positions. And of course, who is the director general of the IAEA to say what countries want or don't want to do? It's in their domain. But what we say is this, having inspectors, having transparency is not, it's neither a reward or an incentive or a penalty is the essence of the work we do here. So whatever kind of political arrangement may be reached, it will not be possible without a strong, robust presence of the IAEA inspectors. And this is what I hope will be preserved. Thank you. Hi, Raghida Bahnam from Al-Arabiya TV. There are some officials in the Biden administration that are saying Iran at the current level of uranium enrichment will be able within three to four months reach the level that needs to build one bomb at least. Now, given that the IAEA inspectors will not be able to see cameras from sites for three months and they will only see them if a political agreement has been reached, can you say with all certainty that by the end of those three months, Iran will not have enough material to build a bomb? Well, there are different issues in what you are asking. One is the amount of enriched uranium that could be accumulated. On this, I can say that the agency will continue to have the means to verify that in whatever circumstance. This is very important on the one hand. On the other hand, I would say that the speculations about whether a member state of the IAEA is going to build a nuclear device is not something we normally do. We don't judge intentions or political aspirations. We simply verify what is there. And by the way, around the world, you have a lot of material accumulated that could lead to this or not. The important thing, I come back again to this. You will hear a lot from me today because I think what is at stake is the ability of this agency to continue inspecting and verifying what's important is to have the inspectors there. If you have the inspectors there, you know what's going on. We don't have the same access applying to other things, which are very important. But if you're talking about the amounts of material, yes, we would. We would. Yes. Thank you very much. So coming back to what you said, that the inspection work of the agency is not to be a bar gaining chip, do I understand correctly that if this technical agreement that you have reached should, in the course of this negotiation, be, for example, ended, what does that mean concretely for you, for the work of the agency? And if I may ask a second question, which could be a little bit maybe off topic on the COVID situation, I learned that because of the importance of your work, you still have a relatively high number of staff members coming to the VIC every week, about half of your staff members, compared to other agencies who have significantly reduced physical work at the Vienna International Center. So I was just wondering, how do you preserve a safe working environment, also given the many infections at the VIC? Yes, yes, yes. First of all, on the inspection work and what may happen, as I said, we reached a week ago, eight days ago, eight days ago, an agreement, myself and the vice president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This, when I, you remember, we were there, it was a very windy night. The first words I said was, this is a temporary bilateral technical understanding. In those four words, there is one that I want to remind us all today. This is a bilateral agreement. It's an agreement between the agency and Iran. So, and this agreement, this agreement has a validity of 90 days. Up to three months, we said, up to three months. And we said something else. We said that both parties to the technical understanding would have a possibility to review at any time the agreement to see whether it continues to serve its purposes. So I suppose that if at some point, my Iranian counterparts want to say something about the continued validity of this agreement, they will communicate that to us in a formal way. So this is why I try to abstain from giving opinions about political statements. We know that a political negotiation of this type sometimes requires, or perhaps not requires, entails. Political statements and affirmations and even sometimes threats. But that's not my area. Turning to the other issue, let me say first of all that here at the IAEA, in general, the international organizations here, but I cannot talk for them, I can say that from the IAEA viewpoint, from the very beginning, I've been in close touch with the Austrian government and we have been guided by their guidelines and requirements in terms of safety and the COVID-19 measures that have been applied here and elsewhere. In the case of the IAEA, unlike other international organizations, because of not only the safe catch work, because of the technical cooperation, the assistance we are giving to 128 countries all over the world on COVID, but also on the safeguards, we need some of our staff to be here. But of course, this is done in strict observance of the safety and hygiene measures as recommended by the Austrian government. So we don't see in that regard a problem in terms of our, as they say, footprint being a bit bigger than the other organizations. In any case, it would be, we are two thirds of whatever you see in this house, in this center, so it's normal that our presence would be felt a little bit more. I hope that is satisfactory answer. Thank you very much. Hello, just in the care of... Sorry, sorry, sorry. Thank you very much. I'll start. Yeah, just in the care of from AFP. So there's been just over a week of this new arrangement being in place with Iran. Are you in a position already to describe or evaluate what concrete impact it has had on the ground? When you came back from Tehran, you said that you were satisfied that you'd still be able to ensure to give the assurance that the program was exclusively peaceful in a satisfactory manner. Is that still... So far, so good. And what could you say for how it's changed? Sorry? How has the work changed? If anything has changed, you mean? Yes, how has it changed since the new agreement came into practice? Well, we lost the additional protocol. And this is a big loss. I said it as well. And also the transparency, what the so-called transparency measures that the specific to the JCPOA. So, for example, to give you an example, if I wanted to go to a place which when I want to go and it's not part of the declared sites and I have a doubt about, I cannot. So it's a huge loss. Let me tell you that since the... Maybe interesting for you to know that since the beginning of the JCPOA, we conducted max 170, more or less, 170 complementary accesses. So you can see the frequency and the intensity of the work of the agency using these tools that the AP used to give us. And hopefully we will recover at some point. Albert Oddy, DPA, Chairman Price Agency, a follow-up question. Since not many normal readers understand complementary access and additional protocol, rather than explaining it in terms of legal framework, could you explain what types of installations or what parts of the fuel cycle you have less access to now? Well, it may be anything. I mean, of course, they have to do, when it comes to additional protocol, this is areas that have to do with research and development. These are areas that have to do with uranium ore. These are areas, and I'm being very technical, I admit, but this is what it is. These are areas where nuclear material is not being utilized, but still important activities that will have an impact down the line are taking place. So additional protocol, you know, it is this instrument that after the side experience in Iraq, the IAEA created with the member states to give the inspectors a bit more visibility. So this is why it includes all the mining part and the research and development parts, which combined with the complementary accesses that I was referring to a second ago, used to give us a very nice, very deep ability to get into whatever was going on, and we have lost. Hello, Diji. I'm Hamad Esgi from Press TV. My question is, you say that it's important for the agency to preserve its work and its inspection in Iran, and this is all based on the JCPOA because a lot of the access that the agency has now is based on the commitments that Iran has accepted on the JCPOA. So if we consider that the JCPOA no longer exists, what will the cooperation between Iran and the agency look like? Well, let me correct something in your affirmation. It's not only the JCPOA. We have JCPOA, we have voluntary measures, we have now the technical understanding, but we also have the traditional comprehensive safeguards agreement mechanisms that exist and give us, albeit more limited, but answering to your question, for example, about the quantities and so we can go to the facilities and see how it is going, and we also have the possibility, for example, of special inspections. We have still, in our toolbox, a number of things that we could eventually use. So there is that area. Could I just, because you mentioned the modified code, 3.1 of the subsidiary arrangements to the CSA, so if Iran has labeled that as part of its voluntary measures, so if Iran does not continue with its commitments under the JCPOA? Yes, we had a very good discussion about that with the Vice President Salehi, who is a very knowledgeable man on all these issues, because you've been working on this for many, many years, and also with the foreign minister. I must say this issue, again, to try to explain to the big public, this is a provision, a legal provision that has it that countries must inform the IEA as soon as they have plans to build, construct new facilities, which is very important in terms of transparency. This is part of the legal obligations of a country. This is not a voluntary measure. Of course, any country can walk away of a legal obligation by rescinding it, abrogating it, walking out from the whatever agreements, but it is not a voluntary measure. This is modified code 3.1, which is technically attached to the comprehensive safeguards agreement, so it is in no way a voluntary measure. So this is a dialogue I'm trying to continue with my Iranian counterparts to make sure that there is no confusion there, because I wouldn't like to have a discussion about things that are, in principle, should not be part of a debate. We have enough complexities out there to add one more unnecessarily. Hello, Jordi from FM, very short question. There is two issues which are separate, but they're related, I guess, which worries you more, the safeguards issue or the JCPOA technical temporary agreement you had to make? Well, I would say, you know, with a nuclear program which has the breadth and depth of the Iranian one, complex, big, sophisticated, we need everything. Sorry, did you just, just to get back to this question of explaining how much has been lost and all the rest of it. I was very interested by your comments to the Nuclear Threat Initiative the other day, where you made it sound like essentially simply operating according to the CSA would not be enough. You were saying that these would not be reversible measures and that you would be flying blind. So does that mean that you feel that the measures afforded you under the safeguards agreement are simply not enough to properly do your job in Iran? Well, certainly they are not at the necessary level because of what I just said. This is a program that has, this wide that it has all these capacities that are growing and which we have been inspecting. So the situation we are is paradoxical. It's like having been able to see this much, provide guarantees and then you cannot see and you are expecting, you're expected to continue to say that everything is fine. I think there is something flawed in that logic. So this is why, because we understand the political complexities, we were trying creatively to find ways to try to mitigate if you want, at least for some time, these deficits. So we can have all in all, as I was also explaining to our colleague from Press TV, here what you have is a variety of measures that apply. You have, or like Jordy was saying, you have the CSA things, you have the additional protocol, you have the transparency measures and out of that, our inspectors make the best combination and they judge what is necessary according to different situations. Mr. Director General, you always say, I talk to my Iranian counterparts and I had a good discussion with Salih here, O'Hanian. So we never heard you saying that you have good talks with your American counterparts. Is it possible to tell us something about how you talk to him? I talk to everybody. Of course, I talk to the Americans, I talk to the three, I talk to Russia, I talk to China, all the EU proper, all the participants. The difference here is that I inspect Iran. So with the others, of course, you discuss about the, what is best, how we apply the norms, what could be a message for the future, but we do have a different sort of relationship with the inspected state party, if you want. So this is what is making the, but of course, I talk to everybody. Yes, I can imagine, but what I meant, like this problem has been created by the American withdrawal from the agreement, the nuclear agreement 2015. So I can guess now the talking is a little bit different. Is it so or? Well, yes, and I don't think you need to confirm this. We have the president of the United States has indicated and the secretary of state has indicated as well that their aspiration is to return to the JCPOA, and they are looking into ways and means to do it. This is why, among other things, I thought it was important to give more time for diplomacy, to give more time for consultations. We are not supposed to drop the ball after seven days or eight days. This is going to take time. And some may even say 90 days is not enough. Perhaps it's not enough. What we all hope, and I hope as an international civil servant, but also as a citizen of the world, I hope they will agree. And we are going to be supporting them. Hi, thank you. Sorry, I just want to ask again also about the two nuclear sites that the IAEA didn't have access for a very long time and that you mentioned in your speech. Doesn't this indicate that there is no trust now with Iran if the Iranians have hidden that they had activities in those two sites for so long? How can you work with them now if the trust is basically nonexistent? And would you like to see a condemnation from the Board of Governors in this term? The work and the trust must always exist. And when we have doubts, we ask questions. We are not condemning anybody. We are simply saying we have found things where they shouldn't be. So explain to me why this is there. And this is the dialogue that I must have. It's a technical dialogue. And when I come to my conclusions, I present them to the Board of Governors after my technical assessment of what we've found. So, and then they decide whether this is compatible or incompatible or condemnable or praiseworthy. It's for member states. I am the mirror and the lens through which the international community can see the reality. For me, what's important is to continue my work. This is what's important. I'm not in the business of condemning or praising countries. Of course, I will always, in so far as I have the technical means to do that, say things as they are. And then as to the qualification, it's not for the IAEA. The qualification is for member states. Is this good? Is this bad? Let them decide. But certainly, without this, you cannot even know what's going on. And this is where it's very serious. So you don't know whether you can sleep tight or be very, very, very concerned at night because you don't have the inspection, the inspections and the inspectors doing their work. Thank you very much for coming. Well, it's been a real pleasure. We will be seeing each other. Thank you very much.