A senior Iranian nuclear official says any visit to the Parchin military site near the capital, Tehran, will be carried out only based on a roadmap agreed upon by Tehran and the UN nuclear body aimed at sorting out outstanding issues regarding the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
“There is no separate agreement for the visit to Parchin and visits will be conducted only within the framework of the agreement [with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)],” Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali-Akbar Salehi said in an interview on Friday.
On July 14, Iran and the IAEA signed a roadmap for “the clarification of past and present issues” regarding Iran’s nuclear program in the Austrian city of Vienna.
After signing the agreement, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said that the roadmap "sets out a clear sequence of activities over the coming months, including the provision by Iran of explanations regarding outstanding issues. It provides for technical expert meetings, technical measures and discussions, as well as a separate arrangement regarding the issue of Parchin [site]."
Amano added that the roadmap enables the IAEA to "issue a report setting out the agency's final assessment of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program, for the action of the IAEA Board of Governors, by 15 December 2015."
The signing of the agreement came on the same day that Tehran and the P5+1 countries – the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany – finalized the text of an agreement, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in Vienna.
The JCPOA turned into an international document after the UN Security Council on Wednesday unanimously endorsed a resolution, under which the IAEA will continue to verify Iran’s compliance with its nuclear-related commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan.