UN inspectors in Iran to check site

Published January 13, 2005

TEHRAN, Jan 12: Inspectors from the UN atomic watchdog arrived in Tehran on Wednesday to visit a military site the United States claims may be involved in covert nuclear weapons activities, student news agency ISNA reported.

"The group of inspectors are to stay in Iran for a week and they will start taking environmental samples from Parchin on Thursday," ISNA said. Iran said on Sunday it had given the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) permission to take so-called environmental samples from the Parchin site south east of Tehran in order to disprove US allegations of secret weapons-related activities.

Environmental sampling involves taking swabs or soil samples to detect the presence of nuclear activity. "The question is not of a visit to the military installations of Parchin.

The agency had asked to take samples from the green areas of Parchin because the Americans and others have made accusations," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters on Sunday.

"To demonstrate that we have nothing to hide and that the Iranian nuclear program is peaceful, we have authorized the agency to take these samples," he added. Parchin is an example of a so-called "transparency visit" where the IAEA is going beyond its mandate under the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to check if nuclear materials have been diverted away from peaceful use.

Tehran has strongly denied carrying out any nuclear-related work at the site. The United States has alleged the Iranians may be working on testing high-explosive charges with an inert core of depleted uranium at Parchin as a sort of dry test for how a bomb with fissile material would work. -AFP

Opinion

Editorial

All out
Updated 25 Feb, 2025

All out

PAKISTAN cricket captain Mohammad Rizwan’s assessment was brutal — it could not have been any other way. At ...
Bearing the brunt
25 Feb, 2025

Bearing the brunt

FOR the past several months, we have repeatedly been told by the prime minister and his cabinet that the government...
Afghan resettlement
25 Feb, 2025

Afghan resettlement

AFGHAN refugees who fled their country after the Taliban took over in 2021, and who hoped to resettle in the West,...
Taliban divisions
Updated 24 Feb, 2025

Taliban divisions

The only workable solution lies in Mullah Akhundzada loosening his iron grip on the country.
Oblivious to drought
24 Feb, 2025

Oblivious to drought

PAKISTAN faces two types of drought: one caused by dry weather or lower-than-normal rainfall, and the other ...
Digital children
24 Feb, 2025

Digital children

AS most parents with young children will agree, the easiest way to pacify a bawling child is to hand them a...