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Iran Gives U.N. Nuclear Inspectors Samples From Secret Military Base Atomic Agency Defends How Iran Collected Evidence at Secret Base
(about 4 hours later)
LONDON — Watched by an array of surveillance devices, including video and still cameras, Iranian officials have collected samples from a secret military complex and turned them over to international inspectors in a process that officials for the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog described Monday as conforming to their strict standards. TEHRAN — The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday that Iran had turned over samples from a suspected site of nuclear experimentation, but confirmed that they had been collected by Iranians under the watchful eye of surveillance devices, rather than by outside nuclear inspectors.
“We feel fully confident that the process and the end result so far are fully in line with our safeguards practices,” Tero Varjoranta, deputy director general of the watchdog group, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said at a news conference in Vienna. The samples came from Parchin, a military base outside Tehran that has been the source of a standoff between the agency and the Iranian authorities for years. A compromise reached in July in Vienna, a day before Iran signed its broad nuclear accord with six world powers, allowed the Iranians to collect the material themselves so that they could make the case that no foreigners were allowed into their military bases.
The procedure has been bitterly criticized by Republican leaders and other opponents of the nuclear deal between Iran and the six world powers. They say it gives carte blanche to Iran to hide evidence of cheating at the site, a military base called Parchin, where, as recently as in 2003, Tehran was accused of conducting research into making nuclear weapons and carrying out tests on explosives. The agency’s inspectors had visited the site before, but a decade ago. It has since been heavily renovated, leading to concerns that Iran was seeking to hide evidence of past work.
An Iranian diplomat used the occasion to deliver a pointed rejoinder to those critics. “Yesterday was an important day in the process of the settlement of Iran’s nuclear issue,” Hamid Ba’idinezhad, the director general for political affairs at the Foreign Ministry, wrote on his Instagram page on Monday. “Thanks God, the fictions made by ill-wishers against our country about Parchin military site were revealed.” But the director general, Yukiya Amano, said at a news conference in Vienna that the procedures used in the collection conformed to the agency’s standards, even if they were unusual. His deputy, Tero Varjoranta, said, “We feel fully confident that the process and the end result so far are fully in line with our safeguards practices.”
The I.A.E.A. signed a side agreement with Tehran the day the nuclear pact was signed, under which Iran was to take samples from the site under invasive monitoring by the agency. In addition to the cameras, the oversight included GPS tracking of the collection process and the agency’s agreement on where the samples were to be taken. In hearings over the summer, several members of Congress compared the procedure to allowing athletes to provide their own biological samples for random drug testing. They argued that it amounted to giving Iran carte blanche to hide evidence of cheating at the site, where Tehran was accused of conducting research into the kind of conventional explosives that could be used to detonate a nuclear device. Iran has always asserted that the experiments had no relationship to nuclear weapons development.
Yukiya Amano, the I.A.E.A. director general, and Mr. Varjoanta, who visited Parchin on Sunday, vigorously defended the procedure. An Iranian diplomat used the occasion on Monday to deliver a pointed rejoinder to those critics. “Yesterday was an important day in the process of the settlement of Iran’s nuclear issue,” Hamid Ba’idinezhad, the director general for political affairs at the Foreign Ministry, wrote on his Instagram page on Monday. “Thanks God, the fictions made by ill wishers against our country about Parchin military site were revealed.”
The atomic energy agency said the operation had been monitored by video and still cameras and GPS tracking of the collection process, to ensure that the samples came from areas the agency was interested in. Parchin is a vast base. Mr. Amano, a former Japanese diplomat, visited Parchin on Sunday with Mr. Varjoranta, and he vigorously defended the procedure.
“The agency can confirm the integrity of the sampling process and the authenticity of the samples, which were taken at places of interest to the agency at the particular location in Parchin,” Mr. Amano said in Vienna. “Authentication by the agency of the samples was achieved through use of an established verification process. The process was carried out under our responsibility and monitoring.”“The agency can confirm the integrity of the sampling process and the authenticity of the samples, which were taken at places of interest to the agency at the particular location in Parchin,” Mr. Amano said in Vienna. “Authentication by the agency of the samples was achieved through use of an established verification process. The process was carried out under our responsibility and monitoring.”
The officials added that the new procedure gave the officials access to Parchin that they had only twice before, in 2005, and then to the wrong building, as the inspectors subsequently came to believe.The officials added that the new procedure gave the officials access to Parchin that they had only twice before, in 2005, and then to the wrong building, as the inspectors subsequently came to believe.
“We entered a building which the agency had previously only been able to observe using satellite imagery,” Mr. Amano said in a statement issued Monday in Vienna. “Inside the building, we saw indications of recent renovation work. There was no equipment in the building. Our experts will now analyze this information and we will have discussions with Iran in the coming weeks, as foreseen in the road map.” “We entered a building which the agency had previously only been able to observe using satellite imagery,” Mr. Amano said in a statement issued Monday in Vienna. “Inside the building, we saw indications of recent renovation work. There was no equipment in the building. Our experts will now analyze this information, and we will have discussions with Iran in the coming weeks, as foreseen in the road map.”
The agency has a Dec. 15 deadline to give its assessment of the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program, an important step in determining the country’s past research into nuclear weapons, which it insists it is not trying to develop. The agency has a Dec. 15 deadline to give its assessment of the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program, an important step in determining the country’s past research into nuclear weapons, which it insists it is not trying to develop. Resolving questions about Parchin is only a small part of that assessment.
Since the 2005 inspection effort, the complex has been bulldozed and completely rebuilt, leading analysts to doubt there is any evidence left to collect Since the 2005 inspection effort, parts of the complex have been bulldozed and rebuilt, leading analysts to doubt there is any evidence left to collect.