Mehr News Agency – Recently, amid international disputes over the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the nuclear deal with Iran, we witnessed the announcement of a sudden resignation of the IAEA’s Head of the Inspection and Supervision Department.
“Tero Varjoranta” is a Finnish diplomat, who also served as the former International Atomic Energy Agency Deputy Director General, (the deputy which carries out inspections of nuclear projects). Varjoranta’s resignation was announced at a crucial time: when many of the news sources didn’t focus on it due to the controversial withdrawal of the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Most of the media covered the resignation of Tero Varjorandta in the form of a short piece of news, and after 24 hours, they mentioned that the agency has agreed with his resignation! Now ten days has passed since the resignation of the IAEA‘s Head of the Inspection and Supervision Department, but he hadn’t yet spoken of the true reasons for which he decided to step away of his post. On the other hand, people like “Yukio Amano”, Director General of the Agency, preferred to remain silent in this regard, and thus prevent the news sources to focus on this incident.
Most importantly, Varjoranta was one of the officials with a rather long presence at the International Atomic Energy Agency. He has served at the IAEA since late 2013. The fact is that Varjoranta’s resignation took place a few days after Donald Trump’s decision to walk out of the nuclear deal, and thus some news sources concluded that there was a direct link between this senior IAEA official’s resignation and Trump’s decision. Besides, some regarded Varjoranta‘s act as a sign of IAEA senior officials and experts’ discontent with the White House. However, this issue appears to be much more complicated than it was thought.
Varjoranta’s anger at Amano’s dual approaches
Since the presence of Donald Trump on top of the political and executive equations of the United States, we have been witnessing the pressure imposed by individuals such as the United States envoy to the UN, “Nikki Haley”, to international organizations including the International Atomic Energy Agency over Iran’s different programs. This pressure has reached a point that Nikki Haley personally traveled to Vienna to ask the IAEA Director General Yukio Amano to be more flexible on “Inspection of Iranian military sites”, and press Iran to let the IAEA inspectors have full access to these sites. In September 2017, Amano made important remarks regarding the inspection of our country’s military sites.
In an interview with the Associated Press, he stated that, according to the terms which Iran has accepted, the Agency will have access to all Iranian sites, including the military sites! In other words, Amano argued that the Agency could have access to “any place” in Iran at any time it wanted. These remarks came two days after Nikki Haley’s visit to Vienna and her meeting with Amano. This was while such statements by Amano were unprecedented since the conclusion of the nuclear deal. These statements reflected the direct influence of Nikki Haley and other American officials on the IAEA Director General.
But Amano’s dual approach didn’t end up at this point! Although he spoke of Iran’s commitment to the CPOA in his reports, he refused to take an independent stance against Trump’s hideous and irrational demands on “inspecting Iran’s military sites”. Since the beginning of 2017, the President of the United States, both formally and informally, discussed the issue of inspection of Iranian military sites, and in this direction, he has never faced with any sort of refusal by Amano and his entourage.
IAEA passiveness before Netanyahu
While only a week remained to the official announcement of US withdrawal from the JCPOA, we witnessed Netanyahu’s nuclear show against the Islamic Republic of Iran. In this nuclear and missile show, he argued that Iran, contrary to the JCPOA terms, has moved towards the production of nuclear weapons! The claim was so ridiculous that even some of Washington and Tel Aviv allies decided not to take any positions on it. Meanwhile, once again we were witnessing the passive stance taken by the IAEA. Eventually, after a few days of silence, the IAEA, in an indirect and prudent response that came after the claims of the Zionist Regime’s Prime Minister against Iran, emphasized that it had “no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009”.
A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement that its board of governors had “declared that its consideration of this issue was closed” after it was presented with a report in December 2015. “The Agency evaluates all safeguards-relevant information available to it. However, it is not the practice of the IAEA to publicly discuss issues related to any such information,” he added.
Interestingly enough, Yukio Amano didn’t want to take any positions beyond the IAEA’s indirect statement, so that the Zionist and US authorities would not blame him for that! Evidences suggest that the main reason for the resignation of Tero Varjoranta was not his anger at Trump’s decision! But the true reason for this resignation should rather be sought in Amano’s passiveness in defending his deputy’s performance against US and Israelis’ political attacks. Under such circumstances, It’s “Amano” whom should be taken as the main accuser, and not Trump! It’s not without a reason that the IAEA Director General didn’t say the least about Varjoranta’s resignation, and with a quick replacement, he tried to close this case forever! Undoubtedly, in the near future, we will hear more about the events behind the Finnish diplomat’s resignation.
By: Mohammad Ghaderi
