Bombshell! UN to Allow Iran to Inspect Own Military Sites
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif laughs towards the end of the nuclear negotiations in Vienna. (Photo: © Reuters)
Dropping a bombshell on the Iranian nuclear agreement negotiated by U.S. along with other world powers and Iran, the AP has disclosedthat Iran will be allowed to use its own inspectors in sites suspected of military development of nuclear weapons.
The revelation comes from a document seen by the AP regarding two parts of the agreement that were kept secret. As per the agreement, two key passages were negotiated separately between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a UN agency, and Iran, were to remain secret.
The secret parts of the deal concern inspections of the Parchin military installation, which has been under suspicion for years for conducting research on nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles. A second secret deal centers on separate negotiations to resolve the issue of possible military dimensions (PMD) of Iran’s nuclear program.
Neither the Congress, the secretary of state or the U.S. president can view the secret “annexes” of the deal according to the negotiated agreement.
The secret side deals were initially denied by officials in the Obama administration. “There's no side deals. There's no secret deals between Iran and the IAEA that the P5+1 has not been briefed on in detail,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a press briefing.
The secret annexes were discovered accidentally by Republican Senators Mike Pompeo of Kansas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas during a meeting with an IAEA officials in Vienna.
“Not only does this violate the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, it is asking Congress to agree to a deal that it cannot review,” Pompeo said at the time.
At a hearing on the nuclear Agreement, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry argued that signatory states to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty often enter into agreements with the IAEA that are not made public.
However, former deputy IAEA director general Olli Heinonen disagreed. Speaking to the AP about the current revelation that Iran will be able to inspect its own military sites, Heinonen said he could not recall any similar concession with any other country.
Independent intelligence gleaned from the U.S. and Israel as well as from the IAEA itself shows that Iran may have tested high-explosive detonators used for nuclear weapons at the Parchin facility.
Recent satellite images analyzed by the Institute for Science and International Security, a respected Washington-based think tank, taken on three dates in July after the signing of the nuclear agreement showed "renewed activity at a site at the Parchin military complex that is linked to past high explosive work on nuclear weapons. These activities could be related to refurbishment or clean-up prior to any IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspection or the taking of environmental samples."
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