UN to Reportedly Let Iran Inspect its Own Nuclear Sites

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency will allow Iran to use its own experts and equipment to conduct an investigation into questions over its past nuclear weaponization work, according to a leaked document obtained by the Associated Press.

The agreement, characterized as “unusual” by nuclear experts, amounts to the IAEA “essentially ceding the agency’s investigative authority to Iran,” the AP stated in its report.

Several agreements made within the umbrella of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the multilateral nuclear deal reached in Vienna on July 14, were directly brokered between the IAEA and Iran. Their details are confidential, as per standard IAEA protocol in its dealings with member states.

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The IAEA agreement “establishes a dangerous precedent that the IAEA weapons inspectors will never get physical access into any military sites as the Iranians have repeatedly refused to provide,” Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in reaction to the report.

“To permit Iran to carry out its own soil sampling and to rely on technical checks will not compensate for the necessity that IAEA weapons inspectors must physically enter and thoroughly investigate any suspect military or nonmilitary sites,” Dubowitz said. “It is through these physical investigations that inspectors can dis – cover the clues of clandestine nuclear and weapons develop – ment activities.”

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