MOSCOW, July 19. /TASS/. Moscow hopes that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will give an unbiased assessment of the attack on the Darkhovin Nuclear Power Plant in Iran, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
"We assume that the IAEA leadership has taken note of what happened and will provide an impartial assessment of the incident, including from the perspective of the direct damage caused to the Agency’s verification activities, which have once again been undermined in the most brazen and inexcusable manner," she said in a commentary posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Telegram channel.
According to Zakharova, any attempts to "use this situation to hype up imaginary threats, allegedly linked to Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, are nothing more than a banal pretext for unacceptable plans to unleash yet another bloodshed in Iran, which will inevitably have negative consequences not only for the already destabilized Middle East, but also for the entire world."
"The exercise of the legitimate right of non-nuclear states, including Iran, to develop and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, as committed to paper in the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons - TASS), must not be called into question or subjected to external pressure," she continued. "We expect that the agency, whose authority and reputation have been put at stake by those who are targeting and striking nuclear facilities in Iran, will take immediate and concrete steps to end such lawlessness."
