American investigative journalist and policy analyst Gareth Porter referred to the demands by some parties to the nuclear negotiations for access to military sites for inspection and to nuclear scientists for interview under any final nuclear deal with Iran, saying the move is, in fact, aimed at preventing the US pro-Israel lawmakers from scuttling the deal.
"Such measures are not necessary to ensure that Iran is adhering to its commitments under the agreement, but they are necessary to manage the political threat from the pro-Israel extremists in the Senate to sabotage the whole agreement," Porter wrote in an article recently published at counterpunch.org.
"To fend off that threat, the Obama administration made the spurious claim that it had succeeded in getting Iran to agree to the demand for IAEA inspection of any site it found suspicious," he explained, noting, "In fact, Iran had agreed only that IAEA would have 'enhanced access through agreed procedures' as reflected in the wording of the joint statement."
Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China), which are in talks over Tehran's nuclear program, released a joint statement on April 2 in Lausanne to announce an agreement on the outline of the deal, which is set to be finalized by the end of June.
This is while, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and senior military officials have "vehemently" rejected both demands, Porter said.
Brazen Misinterpretation
He dismissed as a "brazen misinterpretation" of the Additional Protocol the remarks by International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano on May 12, who said, "In many other countries from time to time we request access to military sites when we have the reason to, so why not Iran?.. If we have a reason to request access, we will do so, and in principle Iran has to accept it."
Porter explained, "That agreement allows unrestricted IAEA access to sites that have already been designated previously by (the signatory) state as related to the nuclear fuel cycle. For all other sites, IAEA access under the Additional Protocol clearly depends on the approval of the state in question."
To bolster his argument, he invoked an article of the protocol which provides that if the signatory state is "unable to provide such access," it "shall make every effort to satisfy Agency requests without delay through other means."
The historian said the IAEA's "contentious" demand for interviews with scientists has been made "based merely on the fact that their names had been found in the laptop documents collection… that the (former US president George W.) Bush administration claimed had come from a covert Iranian nuclear weapons program."
"Both Iran and former IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei challenged the authenticity of those documents, which bear the fingerprints of Israel's Mossad."
"The Iranian objection to such requests was validated when Israel carried out a series of assassinations of Iranian scientists from 2010 through 2012. Israel's Mossad had chosen its targets for assassination, moreover, on the basis of open publications and positions in the nuclear program that were publicly known" Porter said, adding, "Iran has every reason to believe that Israel could obtain any information gleaned from IAEA interviews with scientists on their list to plan more assassinations."
