Iran is escalating rhetoric that contradicts key parts of the Obama-led deal with Iran and insists there will be no international inspections of its nuclear plants that are “military sites” and that it is prepared to build five more underground nuclear facilities.
The Islamic Republic seems to be doing its best to build distrust among Obama administration officials who still have faith in Iran’s promises to stick to an agreement.
Veteran Iranian diplomat Mohammed Javad Larijani, who also is chief of the Iranian Judiciary’s Human Rights Council, told the Tasnim news agency:
We must … say to the US that as long as you consider military option against Iran and your brazen lackey’s (Israeli) continuous saber-rattling is in place, our facilities will not only remain underground, but will go deeper in the ground.
The “framework” agreement reached in April between Iran and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the other P5+1 powers includes clauses that call for Iran to allow inspections of all nuclear sites and for turning the underground Fordow facility into a “nuclear, physics and technology center.”
Now Iran has come up with a new way to say the agreement is not valid. Larijani explained to Tasnim that the Fordow plant should not be shut down while the Obama administration retrains the “military option” to strike Iran if it secretly acquires a nuclear weapon.
He stated:
It is unacceptable that the other side would continuously issue threats while the negotiations are underway.
As for inspections that President Barack Obama insists will take place at all Iranian nuclear facilities, Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi told the regime’s Mehr News Agency that no outsiders will be allowed at military bases and sites.
That means nuclear facilities at military sites will be unsupervised.
This is what Iran really is saying: We will agree to a deal so long as there no ways and means to make sure it is honored.