Major powers negotiating with Iran have put forward proposals to give the UN International Atomic Energy Agency access to Iranian sites as part of a nuclear deal, a senior US official said on Monday.
"We have worked out a process that we believe will ensure that the IAEA has the access it needs," the administration official told journalists, AFP reported.
"The entry point isn't that we must be able to get into every military site, because the United States of America wouldn't allow anybody to get into every military site, so that's not appropriate," the official said.
Iran has ruled out any inspection of its military facilities under the prospective nuclear accord.
Another US official later said the proposals were part of an April 2 deal agreed in Switzerland "the details of which are being negotiated now."
"There are conventional purposes, and there are secrets that any country has that they are not willing to share," the first American official said.
"But if in the context of this agreement... the IAEA believes that it needs access and has a reason for that access, then we have a process to ensure that that is given," the official said.
The US official, who asked not to be named, said Washington had long insisted that if the UN nuclear agency felt it needed access to a site "then they should be able to get it".
"If that happens to be a military site then that should be available," the official said, adding the IAEA had an "institutional responsibility" to explore what the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program may have been.
Tehran denies its nuclear program may have any military objectives, saying the work is solely for peaceful purposes such as generating electricity.
