A senior commander in the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) says international nuclear inspectors would be barred from military sites under any nuclear agreement with world powers.
Gen. Hossein Salami, the Guard’s deputy leader, said Sunday on state TV that allowing the foreign inspection of military sites is tantamount to “selling out.”
A fact sheet by the U.S. State Department issued on the framework agreement reached to curb Tehran’s nuclear program said Iran would be required to grant the UN nuclear agency access to any “suspicious sites.”
Since the nuclear talks have started, the International Atomic Energy Agency has been continually denied access to a number of sites suspected to be associated with the nuclear program, and none of the outstanding questions relating to the possible military dimensions have been resolved.
Tehran is desperate to avoid true scrutiny of its nuclear program. But it is equally desperate to keep negotiations going in hopes of removing the sanctions that have crippled its economy.
A full disclosure of the military dimensions of the regime’s nuclear program would not be possible without snap IAEA inspections at all sites including Parchin.
The IAEA held talks in Iran last week but there was no sign of a breakthrough on aspects of the regime’s nuclear program that the agency says Tehran has failed to fully address.
The IAEA that is investigating the Iranian regime’s nuclear program in parallel to talks between Tehran and six world powers said in March it expected progress with Iran this month on outstanding issues related to the nature of neutron calculations and alleged experiments on explosives that could be used to develop an atomic device.
The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said on March 2: “Iran has yet to provide explanations that enable the agency to clarify two outstanding practical measures,” Yukiya Amano told the body’s Board of Governors in Vienna, echoing a report seen by Reuters last month.
“The agency is not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”
He added that his agency remained ready to accelerate the resolution of all outstanding issues, but “this process cannot continue indefinitely”.