by The Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff
Iranian defense minister says country's nuclear scientists will not be available to inspectors • Iran insists Parchin is a conventional military site with no ties to nuclear development • Iran maintains it has never developed nuclear weapons.
Satellite image of the
Parchin military facility
|
Photo credit: AP |
Iran's defense minister on Saturday said there
was no need for U.N. nuclear inspectors to pay another visit to the
Parchin military site, where the country is suspected of having tested
components used in nuclear weapons.
Gen. Hossein Dehghan was quoted by the
official Islamic Republic News Agency as saying that the International
Atomic Energy Agency had already been to the site southeast of Tehran
and carried out tests there. "Besides, they have accepted that nothing
happened in Parchin," he said.
He added that Iran would not make its nuclear
scientists available to the inspectors. Iran has in the past charged the
agency with leaking information that led to the assassination of
scientists.
Inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog have
visited Parchin in the past but want to go back. Iran denies it has
ever pursued nuclear weapons at Parchin, insisting it is a conventional
military site.
Iran has vowed to cooperate with the IAEA as
part of talks with world powers aimed at reaching a lasting agreement on
its nuclear program. Western nations have long suspected Iran of
pursuing a nuclear weapons capability alongside its civilian program and
have imposed crippling sanctions, which Iran now hopes to see lifted in
exchange for curbing its nuclear activities.
Iran insists it has never worked on nuclear
arms, describing such allegations as based on false intelligence from
Israel, as well as the U.S. and its Western allies.
At the same time, Iran has been guarded when
it comes to military matters, fearing that information about its
conventional capabilities could be leaked to Israel or the U.S., both of
which have threatened to take military action if necessary to prevent
it from getting a nuclear weapon.
Earlier this month, Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani told visiting IAEA head Yukia Amano that Iran's long-range
missile program will not be part of the nuclear talks.
Iran inaugurated a new plant on Saturday to
convert a type of uranium into a material that cannot be used to make
nuclear weapons, part of an interim accord reached with world powers
last November, IRNA reported.
The report quoted Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's
nuclear agency, as saying that the plant will convert uranium
hexafluoride, which can be used to make nuclear weapons and fuel, into
uranium dioxide, which can only be used in reactors. The plant is
located in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, the report said. Iran
has a nuclear power plant in the southern port of Bushehr that went
online in 2011.
The Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=19631
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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