Iran rejects snap nuclear inspection


Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization announced on Tuesday that the Iranian regime would not implement the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

 The Additional Protocol would allow international inspectors the ability to go anywhere at any time to examine sites suspected of harboring secret nuclear weapons development.

The International Atomic Energy Agency head Yukiya Amano has insisted that Iran implement the Additional Protocol. In response Kamalvandi said: “Mr Amano had indicated numerous times in his reports that if he wants to declare Iran’s nuclear activities as being peaceful, the Additional Protocol should be implemented… and on other occasions he has emphasized that the UN Security Council and the IAEA’s Board of Governors have called on Iran to implement the Additional Protocol, even though we have responded to this issue a number of times.”

Kavalvandi added: “First of all, accepting the Additional Protocol is voluntary, and in addition to that, we do not consider the UN Security Council and Board of Governors resolutions legal and thus we have not implemented them up to now.”

The director general of IAEA, on Monday attended a conference hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told the Washington Post in an interview, “Iran has failed to provide the information or access needed to allay the agency’s concerns about the weapons potential of the country’s nuclear program.”

He also said, “Iran has replied to just one of a dozen queries about ‘possible military dimensions’ of past nuclear activities.”
Amano said that the six global powers negotiating with Iran should insist that the country implement the Additional Protocol, adding that it will be “very much needed. It will give us more powerful tools to look at activities not declared to us.” However, it seems that Iran will be loth to do so, as per these statements by Kamalvandi.

he negotiations between Tehran and the P5+1 are aiming to establish guarantees that Iran’s ruling theocracy will not obtain nuclear weapons, and blocking all of its possible pathways to a bomb. The Iranian regime has a two-decade long history of concealing its nuclear program, particularly the aspects pertinent to possible military dimensions.

On February 24, the National Council of Resistance of Iran revealed detailed information about the existence of a secret parallel system, as well as the existence of a secret site, “Lavizan-3” in Tehran.  According to the information provided by the NCRI by the People’s Mojahedijn Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) inside the country, Tehran has been enriching uranium secretly at this site for years using advanced centrifuges.