The regime in Iran will have no way to avoid inspections of military or other sites that the United States and its allies deem suspicious when a nuclear pact sealed this week goes into effect, U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice said on Wednesday.
Rice, in an interview with Reuters, said the deal would not give the regime in Iran any room to oppose inspections if Washington or others had information believed to reveal a secret site that they took to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for review.
“If the Iranians said, ‘No, you can’t see that site,’ whether it’s a military site or not, the IAEA, if it deems the site suspicious, can ask for access to it,” she said.
If the regime in Iran refuses access but five of the eight international signatories to the deal demand an investigation under a newly created joint commission, Tehran must comply, she said.
“It’s not a request. It’s a requirement,” Rice said. The regime in Iran would be “bound to grant that access.”
Under the deal announced earlier this week, sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union and United Nations will be lifted in exchange for Tehran agreeing to long-term curbs on its nuclear program.
As part of the deal, the regime in Iran will have a 24-day period in which it can address concerns over suspicious sites and agree to inspections.
But the procedure does not explicitly force the regime in Iran to admit that its military sites could be open to foreign inspections, leaving some uncertainty over the access Tehran will allow in practice.
Critics of the deal have said the agreement is full of loopholes, particularly when it comes to verification and Tehran’s “breakout” capability – the time it would take theoretically to develop a nuclear weapon. They have called the 24-day period an unacceptable loophole for the regime in Iran.
Signatories to the deal include the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, the EU, and the regime in Iran.
Rice and other officials in President Barack Obama’s administration are advancing a broad sales pitch at home and abroad, needing to reassure skeptical Gulf allies and Republicans in Congress who are hostile to the deal.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter will travel to Saudi Arabia as part of the effort to convince partners in the region about the benefits of the deal, Rice said.
Rice gave a strong indication that some of Tehran’s stockpile of enriched uranium would be shipped to Russia as a result of the historic deal and said the United States would not be worried about that.
“It can be shipped out to a third country, like Russia. That’s probably the most likely means … Russia has its own fissile material, it’s handled it appropriately, we’re not concerned about that,” Rice said.
