Iran Wednesday poured water on the U.N. nuclear watchdog's hopes of securing access in talks next week to a military complex where suspected past research into atomic bomb triggers might have been carried out.
Iran Wednesday poured water on the U.N. nuclear watchdog's hopes of
securing access in talks next week to a military complex where suspected past
research into atomic bomb triggers might have been carried out.
Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation Freydoon Abbasi Davani said
Tehran
would
not agree to any inspections beyond those of declared nuclear sites required by
the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"Our talks with them will be based on laws and regulations and based on
the rights of our nation," Abbasi Davani told state television. "We
will not accept anything more than what is in the NPT."
For the past year, the International Atomic Energy Agency has been trying to
reach agreement with
Iran
on a
"structured approach" to allow inspectors to conduct spot checks on
sites not covered by the treaty.
Foremost among those is the Parchin military complex outside
Tehran
, a
non-nuclear site where the IAEA suspects
Iran
may
have conducted past tests of conventional explosives that could be used to
detonate an atomic bomb.
After a visit to
Tehran
last
month, IAEA chief inspector Herman Nackaerts said he was confident that an
agreement could be finalized at next Wednesday's talks and that access to
Parchin would be "part of" it.
He had expressed similar optimism in December 2011, only for his hopes to be
dashed early last year.
Abbasi Davani said
Iran
remained ready to answer any concerns the watchdog had, provided it was given
the intelligence on which they were based.
"We will try to resolve any question marks the IAEA has that have been put
to them by foreign intelligence services. But, for us to do so, the IAEA must
give us the documentation and evidence so that we can study them," he
said.
The IAEA wants
Iran
to
address substantively a mass of what the agency calls "overall,
credible" evidence set out in a major 2011 report that
Iran
did
weapons research up until 2003, and possibly since then.
Iran
denies seeking or ever having sought nuclear weapons, and rejected the alleged
evidence outright in a series of meetings with the IAEA last year.
Much of the information on the alleged weapons research comes from foreign
intelligence agencies, including from arch foe Israel, the Middle East's sole
if undeclared nuclear-armed state which has threatened to bomb Iran.
The IAEA has zeroed in on Parchin because its information on activities there
is "independent," such as from commercially available satellite
imagery, and from an unidentified "foreign expert."
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast had hinted that access
might be granted to Parchin, but only once a "comprehensive
agreement" with the watchdog has been reached.
Διαβάστε ακόμα
Τρι, 24 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 19:58
Τρι, 24 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 19:54
Τετ, 18 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 18:32
Τετ, 18 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 18:27
Τρι, 17 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 20:01