US inspectors will be banned from all Iranian nuclear sites under controversial deal amid warnings ‘only American experts can tell if they are cheating’
By Sara Malm for MailOnline
11:52 17 Jul 2015, updated 13:51 17 Jul 2015
U.S. nuclear experts will not be part of the teams inspecting Iran’s nuclear sites under the deal agreed with world’s powers this week, officials have confirmed.
The inspection teams ensuring that Tehran adheres to the agreement to curb their nuclear program will be made up of experts from countries which has diplomatic relations with Iran.
As the U.S. currently does not, no Americans will be involved in the on the ground inspections of the nuclear facilities, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said.
After months of talks, Iran the U.S. and five other world powers finalized a historic agreement which requires Iran to dismantle key elements of its nuclear program, lower its uranium enrichment levels, and give up thousands of centrifuges, in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief.
International inspectors will have access to Iran’s declared nuclear facilities, but must request visits to Iran’s military sites, access that isn’t guaranteed.
Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Ms Rice admitted that there would be no U.S. inspectors on the ground in Iran under the new deal agreed in Vienna this week.
‘The IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] will field an international team of inspectors and those inspectors will, in all likelihood, come from IAEA member states, most of whom have diplomatic relations with Iran. We, of course, are a rare exception,’ she said.
After being asked point blank by Blitzer, Ms Rice admitted that ‘no Americans will be part of the IAEA inspection teams.‘
She also added that there will not be any independent American inspectors separate from the IAEA.
According to analysts interviewed by right-wing website Washington Free Beacon, the news that no American experts will be present during nuclear inspections has ‘attracted concern’.
The website claims that analysts believe ‘only American experts can be trusted to verify that Iran is not cheating on the deal and operating clandestine nuclear facilities’.
This comes as a senior Muslim cleric announced that Iran will only accept the deal if sanctions are lifted immediately and frozen revenues are returned.
Speaking to worshippers at Friday prayers in Tehran, Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani added that some of the countries with whom the accord was signed were untrustworthy and had made excessive demands that were an ‘insult’.
The U.N. Security Council vote on the Iran deal has been scheduled for first thing Monday morning.
With all five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Counci – China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and the U.S. – involved in the marathon Iran negotiations, the resolution’s adoption Monday is almost certain.
Monday’s vote came despite calls from some U.S. lawmakers to delay Security Council approval until Congress reviews the deal.
The chairman of the Senate’s foreign relations committee, Bob Corker, on Thursday wrote a letter to President Barack Obama saying, ‘We urge you to postpone the vote at the United Nations until after Congress considers this agreement.’
But the chief U.S. negotiator in the Iran talks, Wendy Sherman, rejected that idea Thursday.
She told reporters: ‘It would have been a little difficult when all of the (countries negotiating with Iran) wanted to go to the United Nations to get an endorsement of this, since it is a product of the United Nations process, for us to say, ‘Well, excuse me, the world, you should wait for the United States Congress.”
Sherman said the council resolution allows the ‘time and space’ for a congressional review before the measure actually takes effect.
No comments:
Post a Comment