IAEA chief stresses future right to inspect Iran's military sites

PARIS, May 27 (KUNA) -- The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukia Amano has said that in cases of "inconsistency" of information, Iran would be asked to submit to inspections of military sites.
This is a policy the UN nuclear watchdog applies to 120 countries it works with.
Amano, in an interview with French daily "Le Monde" on Wednesday, was speaking just over a month before a final agreement is due to be reached between the P5+1 and Iran over Tehran's controversial nuclear program, as the Islamic Republic's need to curtail uranium enrichment, open to IAEA inspections and reassure the international community it is not seeking to develop a nuclear weapon.
Iran has consistently denied any such ambitions but has not fully cooperated with international inspections and has masked some program, leading to suspicions there was research to develop a military component in the nuclear sector.
So far, Iran has said it will not open up military sites to the IAEA or other inspectors for reasons of national security.
Some years back, Iran was suspected to be running some suspicious tests and program at the Parchin military facility but this was closed to inspections for a long time and traces of the program were allegedly removed before IAEA staff was allowed in.
Amano told "Le Monde" that this would not be acceptable after an agreement with the international community.
"When we find inconsistency, or when we have doubts, we can request access to the undeclared location, for example, and this could include military sites," he said.
Iran, in the event of inspection requests, says it wants 24 days' notice of any such process, but French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius last week intimated that this was excessive, noting "many things can disappear in 24 days." Amano, a Japanese national, noted that visiting Iranian military sites with teams of inspectors was delicate and must be handled properly because of "the sensitiveness of the site." Nonetheless, he said his Vienna-based agency "has the right to request access to all locations, including military ones." He said it would take some time, possibly "several months", to determine if Iran was doing military, nuclear research and development and he remarked this will depend largely on how good Iranian cooperation is.
He added that it might take years before the international community gets the full reassurance it wants that Iran has merely been seeking civil nuclear power, as Tehran claims.
The IAEA has located twelve sites in Iran where it needs clarification on what "sensitive activities", if any, were being carried out there.
One of these sites is the aforementioned military base at Parchin, which was visited before but only after a long standoff between the IAEA and Tehran. (end) jk.msa