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media reported last week that Iran had flatly refused the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to its Parchin military test
facility, based on a statement to reporters by IAEA Deputy Director
General, Herman Nackaerts, that “We could not get access”.
Now, however, explicit statements on the issue by the Iranian Ambassador
to the IAEA and the language of the new IAEA report indicate that Iran
did not reject an IAEA visit to the base per se but was only refusing
access as long as no agreement had been reached with the IAEA governing
the modalities of cooperation.
That new and clarifying information confirms what I reported February
23. Based on the history of Iranian negotiations with the IAEA and its
agreement to allow two separate IAEA visits to Parchin in 2005, the
Parchin access issue is a bargaining chip that Iran is using to get the
IAEA to moderate its demands on Iran in forging an agreement on how to
resolve the years-long IAEA investigation into the “Possible Military
Dimensions” of the Iranian nuclear program.
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