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Madame President, I would like to thank Ambassador Gary Quinlan for his quarterly briefing on the work of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to the resolution 1737 on Iran. I also wish to commend the Committee and its Panel of Experts for their important work. Lithuania remains concerned over the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme and its failure to comply with numerous Security Council and IAEA Board of Governors resolutions obliging Iran to suspend all reprocessing, heavy water and enrichment-related activities. In his latest report the IAEA Director General has once again noted that the Agency was not in a position to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran was used for peaceful activities and that it remained concerned about the possible undisclosed military dimension of Iran’s nuclear programme.

At the same time, we welcome the 24 November 2013 Joint Plan of Action agreed by the E3+3 and Iran as the first confidence building step. We further call on Iran to engage constructively with the E3+3 in reaching a comprehensive agreement on all outstanding issues and welcome another round of talks that took place on 18‑19 March in Vienna. We are also encouraged by the fact that the six initial practical measures foreseen in the Framework for Cooperation between IAEA and Iran have been implemented. We also welcome the agreement on the next seven practical measures.

Pending the comprehensive solution to the Iranian nuclear issue, all Security Council sanctions imposed on Iran remain in effect and Member States, as well as their nationals and entities, are obliged to rigorously implement them. Iran is required to cooperate fully with the international community on all outstanding issues, before the measures imposed by the Council can be lifted. The work of both the Committee and the Panel of Experts in verifying compliance with relevant Security Council measures should therefore remain unaffected.

As the next annual report of Committee’s Panel of Experts is due in May, we need to make sure that all relevant recommendations contained in the 2013 report are duly addressed. In this regard we welcome discussions on the Implementation Assistance Notice related to a “catch-all” clause and hope for a more speedy progress, following the adoption of the Notice related to an equivalent provision by the DPRK Sanctions Committee.

Iran’s repeated violations of the conventional arms embargo is a matter of grave concern. Despite the complete ban on the export of any arms from Iran and a ban on the supply of the major conventional weapons to Iran, there have been reports of weapons transfers to Syria, non-state actors in Gaza and a number of states. The Committee’s letter regarding the seizure by Yemeni authorities of arms and related materiel remains unanswered by Iran since May 2013. Recent official reports on interception of a vessel allegedly carrying weapons to Gaza are also worrying and need to be investigated by the Committee and its Panel of Experts without delay.

Lithuania supports all efforts geared at finding a comprehensive negotiated solution to the Iran’s nuclear issue that would fully reassure the international community of an exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear programme. We hope that Iran’s recent engagement in E3+3 talks would also translate into its increased cooperation with the Committee.

Thank you, Madame President.