Statement by the Republic of Slovenia at the briefing on non-proliferation

Thank you President,

I wish to thank USG DiCarlo, Ambassador Lambrinidis and Ambassador Frazier for their briefings.

Mr. President,

JCPoA is undoubtedly one of the biggest achievements in multilateralism of the past decade. It instituted a robust regime that comprehensively addressed a pressing international security issue. Unfortunately, it suffered some hard blows since the US withdrew from it and Iran started to implement the so-called “remedial measures”.

Slovenia remains concerned that Iran stopped the implementation of the transparency measures envisaged by the JCPoA. When in addition to this, the decision was made to remove all IAEA’s JCPOA-related surveillance and monitoring equipment, a full overview over Iran’s nuclear program was rendered impossible. All of this is detrimental to Agency’s ability to confirm the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.

In the meantime, Iran accumulated a stockpile of enriched uranium that is now reaching more than 32 times over the JCPoA limit. In addition, and as underlined numerous times by the IAEA, Iran is the only non-nuclear weapon State to produce and accumulate highly enriched uranium. And so far, Iran has accumulated almost 200 kilograms of it.

These concerns are exacerbated by the latest developments, as Iran intends to significantly increase the production of highly enriched uranium. And most importantly – we still lack a credible explanation about how this highly enriched uranium will be used or can be used for civilian purposes. With this in mind, Slovenia calls on Iran to reverse these actions and refrain from any further escalatory steps. Iran’s full cooperation with the IAEA remains crucial. Slovenia fully supports the Agency and commends it for its important work.

Mr. President,

The size and unclear nature of Iran’s nuclear program presents challenges, which the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) simply could never have fully addressed. Today this is a greater concern than it was before the JCPoA was adopted. We have now entered the final year of resolution 2231 and the “Termination day” is drawing closer. We remain confident that there is only a political solution to the Iran’s nuclear issue. Slovenia joins the Secretary-General’s call to remain committed to a diplomatic solution for restoring JCPoA’s objectives.

I thank you.

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