Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York issued a statement on Thursday denying the claim that Iran is “sanitizing” the Parchin military site, 30 km southeast of Tehran, of any evidence indicating it has carried out nuclear weapons-related research there in the past.
The statement said Iran “strongly denies and rejects the baseless claims about the so-called clean-up operations in the Parchin Military Complex”.
It said there was construction work at Parchin to repair a road and denounced “the extensive vicious campaign at work ... to poison the positive environment at the global level.”
“The Islamic Republic of Iran.. has never had any military nuclear activity and has never been engaged in any unconventional act that would need a hasty cover-up,” it added. A US think tank alleged Iran might be cleaning up its Parchin site, where the UN nuclear agency claims experiments may have taken place which could be relevant to any effort to develop nuclear weapons, Reuters reported.
The US-based Institute for Science and International Security pointed to satellite images, taken after Iran signed a nuclear deal with major powers on July 14, showing vehicles and container-like objects being moved at Parchin, which Iran said were part of road works in the area. US State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on Thursday he could not confirm the group’s findings.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest separately played down any such Iranian efforts, although he said at a daily briefing he could not discuss any specific intelligence matters.
