29 Mar 2024
Thursday 21 May 2015 - 12:19
Story Code : 165349

Irans Supreme Leader rules out broad nuclear inspections

TEHRAN Irans supreme leader on Wednesday ruled out allowing international inspectors to interview Iranian nuclear scientists as part of any potential deal on its nuclear program, and reiterated that the country would not allow the inspection of military sites.

In a graduation speech at the Imam Hussein Military University in Tehran, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, widely believed to have the final say on whether Iran accepts a deal if one is reached next month, denounced what he said were escalating demands by the United States and five other world powers as they accelerate the pace of the negotiations with Iran.

They say new things in the negotiations, Ayatollah Khamenei told the military graduates. Regarding inspections, we have said that we will not let foreigners inspect any military center.

Secretary of State John Kerry, Irans foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and Federica Mogherini of the European Union.Diplomatic Memo: Outline of Iran Nuclear Deal Sounds Different From Each SideAPRIL 4, 2015
Like last summer, when he vowed that Iran would ultimately build an industrial-scale uranium enrichment capability with 190,000 centrifuges, or 10 times the number now installed the ayatollahs comments are bound to cause deep complications for Irans negotiators, led by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Skeptics about the preliminary deals described by Secretary of State John Kerry have focused on the absence of anywhere, anytime inspections and a lack of clarity about whether and when Tehran would have to answer 12 outstanding questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency about what the inspectors call possible military dimensions of the program.

Central to that is the ability to interview nuclear scientists, starting with Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the man considered by Western intelligence officials to be the closest thing Iran has to J. Robert Oppenheimer, who guided the Manhattan Project to develop the worlds first nuclear weapon. The scientists and engineers Mr. Fakhrizadeh has assembled over the past 15 years are best suited to explain, or rebut, documents suggesting that Iran has extensively researched warheads, nuclear ignition systems and related technologies. Mr. Fakhrizadeh has never been made available to inspectors for interviews, and his network of laboratories, some on university campuses, have not been part of inspections.

In April, Mr. Kerry told Judy Woodruff on PBS NewsHour that Iran could not avoid answering the questions about its past actions. They have to do it. It will be done, he said. If theres going to be a deal, it will be done.

But it is not clear how that would be enforced, and it seems likely that oil and financial sanctions would be lifted early in the process, before the explanations to inspectors could be finished.

After the last round of talks ended on Friday in Vienna, a barrage of complaints erupted in the Iranian state news media over reported demands by the United States for broad mandates for nuclear inspectors working for the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

The comments by Ayatollah Khamenei seemed to cement the Iranian position that requiring inspections of sites not designated by the country as part of its nuclear energy program is a nonstarter. While not new, the statement could make it harder for Mr. Zarif to seal a comprehensive deal before the self-imposed June 30 deadline.

Interviews with nuclear scientists have long been a contentious issue with Iran. Five scientists were killed in separate attacks from 2010 to 2012, attacks that the United States and other countries believe were initiated by Israeli intelligence. Iran has accused the International Atomic Energy Agency of leaking personal information about the scientists to Israel. Israel has never commented on the accusations.

They say the right to interview nuclear scientists must be given, Ayatollah Khamenei said, according to his website. This means interrogation. I will not let foreigners come and talk to scientists and dear children of the nation who have developed this science up to this level.

He also sent a warning to a regional rival, Saudi Arabia, and its Sunni Arab allies not to stir up trouble in Irans border provinces, populated mostly by Irans Sunni minorities. I have some news that enemies in cooperation with some stupid officials in the region intend to bring proxy wars close to the borders of Iran, the ayatollah said. They should know that if they cause mischief, Irans reaction will be very harsh.

Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia are backing opposing sectarian forces in a proxy war in Yemen and many smaller conflicts in the Middle East, although they are nominal allies in the war against the Islamic State.

On Wednesday, a brewing crisis over an Iranian cargo ship headed to Yemen that Tehran says is carrying aid but that Saudi Arabia suspects has weapons seemed to have been defused. The Saudi Navy had threatened to board the ship, which, in addition to its cargo, carried a group of reporters from the Iranian state news media.

The Iranian state news agency IRNA reported that a decision had been made for the ship to sail to the port of Djibouti for inspection by the Red Cross.

This article was written byThomas Erdbrink & David E. Sanger for The New York Times on May 20, 2015. Thomas Erdbrink, one of the few Western reporters accredited for U.S. media in the Islamic Republic of Iran, joined The Times in 2012 as Tehran bureau chief. David E. Sanger is chief Washington correspondent of The New York Times. Mr. Sanger has reported from New York, Tokyo and Washington, covering a wide variety of issues surrounding foreign policy, globalization, nuclear proliferation and Asian affairs.
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