The United Nations nuclear watchdog can push for access to military sites in Iran under the terms of a preliminary agreement reached with Tehran, the head of the body told the Associated Press in an interview.
The Iranian regime reached an agreement with six world powers on April 2 to allow U.N. inspectors to carry out more intrusive, short-notice inspections under an “additional protocol”.
“In many other countries from time to time we request access to military sites when we have the reason to, so why not Iran?” Yukiya Amano, the director general of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was quoted as saying by AP.
“If we have a reason to request access, we will do so, and in principle Iran has to accept it,” he added.
The Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has the final say for Iran on any deal, has ruled out any “extraordinary supervision measures” over nuclear activities and said military sites could not be inspected.
Meanwhile, the Iranian regime has been stalling a IAEA investigation into the military dimensions of its nuclear program.
When asked whether the implementation of the Additional Protocol would help the IAEA’s investigation, Amano said the agency did not know about that yet as it depended on the pace of Iran’s cooperation.
Spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz Kamalvandi rejected remarks by Yukiya Amano on addition protocol and described it as “his own interpretation”.
“The interpretation of the addition protocol by the IAEA director general, is his own one…,” Kamalvandi said in response to Amano’s Tuesday interview.
Firstly, Tehran has not approved or implemented the additional protocol yet, he said, adding that secondly, in the provisions of the protocol, there is no specific obligation for signatory countries to allow access to their military sites.