Ros-Lehtinen Comments on Reports of IAEA Cover-up of Iranian Nuclear Activities

Press Release

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, commented today on reports that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has refused to publish evidence that Iran is “pursuing information about weaponization efforts and a military nuclear program.” Statement by Ros-Lehtinen:

“Instead of preventing nuclear proliferation, it appears that an increasingly politicized IAEA may be concealing evidence of just that by the Iranian regime.

“Worse yet, U.S. funds are also being used by the IAEA to provide nuclear assistance to Iran and other rogue regimes.

“The IAEA must immediately release all evidence of Iran's nuclear activities, and Congress should pass pending legislation that stops U.S. taxpayer dollars from indirectly bankrolling Iran's nuclear program.”

Background: Ros-Lehtinen is the author of the Stop Nuclear Assistance to State Sponsors of Terrorism Act (H.R. 3107), which includes provisions to withhold U.S. funding to the IAEA for technical cooperation assistance to regimes that are designated state sponsors of terrorism or are in breach - or suspected breach - of their nonproliferation obligations and IAEA commitments.

Note: Recent reports quote Western diplomats and Israeli officials as claiming that the IAEA censored recent published reports to exclude evidence of Iranian nuclear activities related to weaponization and a military nuclear program. This past March, the Government Accountability Office found that “Neither [the Department of] State nor IAEA seeks to systematically limit TC [technical cooperation] assistance to countries the United States has designated as state sponsors of terrorism - Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria - even though under U.S. law these countries are subject to sanctions.”

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