Last week, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley visited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is scrutinizing compliance with the 2015 agreement, as part of a review of the pact by the administration of US President Donald Trump. He has called it “the worst deal ever negotiated”.
After her talks with officials of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Haley said: “There are... numerous undeclared sites that have not been inspected. That is a problem.” Iran dismissed her demands as “merely a dream”.
The IAEA has the authority to request access to facilities in Iran, including military ones, if there are new and credible indications of banned nuclear activities there, according to officials from the agency and signatories to the deal.
But they said Washington has not provided such indications to back up its pressure on the IAEA to make such a request.
“We’re not going to visit a military site like Parchin just to send a political signal,” an IAEA official said.
IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano frequently describes his Vienna-based agency as a technical rather than a political one, underscoring the need for its work to be based on facts alone.
The IAEA has invariably verified Iran’s commitment to the deal, which took effect in January 2016.
It once again verified Iranian compliance in its latest report on Thursday.
The IAEA’s Board of Governors voted overwhelmingly in December 2015, months after the nuclear deal was signed, in favor of a resolution that closed the so-called possible military dimensions (PMD) case in Iran’s nuclear program.
Haley’s visit came as part of a review US President Donald Trump has ordered into the nuclear deal, which was signed between Iran and world powers, including the US itself, in 2015. Trump, who had made no secret of opposing Iran in his election campaign, has threatened to “tear up” the agreement, calling it “the worst deal ever negotiated.”
The IAEA official also said, “We just don’t want to give them an excuse to” bring down the accord.
Apart from the US, the other parties to the nuclear accord, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), have unexceptionally stood by the accord, and warned Washington against trying to sabotage it.
Most recently, French President Emmanuel Macron said his country saw “no alternative” to the agreement.
Trump has twice verified Iran’s commitment to the deal in reports submitted to Congress.
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2 September 2017 - 09:28
News ID: 851888
(AhlulBayt News Agency) - The US is pushing UN nuclear inspectors to check military sites in Iran to verify it is not breaching its nuclear deal with world powers. But for this to happen, inspectors must believe such checks are necessary and so far they do not, officials say.
