Images Released on Iran's Military Sites Are Drawings
(FNA)- Former White House Advisor Dennis Ross announced that the pictures released on a container in Iran's Parchin military site, which the US claims (but has no evidence to prove) to be an experimental blast container, was not a photograph, but a drawing.
"The image released on experimental detonation devices and equipment in Iran was actually a drawing and not a photograph," Ross said in an interview with the CNN.
"Some people who are informed of the tools and equipment and their place in Iran might have drawn them," he added.
Iranian officials have repeatedly underlined that the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) has no station or activity in Parchin and the site has already been inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) twice.
"We (AEOI) have no site in Parchin; Parchin has been repeatedly accused (by the IAEA of running suspected military nuclear activities) despite the fact that it has gone under inspection in the past," Head of the AEOI Fereidoun Abbasi said.
He reminded that the IAEA should have a strong argument to convince Iranian officials, including the defense minister, that inspection of Parchin is necessary, and said, "Our military commanders are rational people (and would allow IAEA access to Parchin if they are presented with a good reasoning), but the point is that we in the Atomic Energy (Organization of Iran) have not been convinced by the IAEA inspectors of the goal of such a visit."
Early March, Iran's Representative the IAEA Ali Asqar Soltaniyeh announced that Tehran would be ready to provide the UN nuclear agency with one-time access to its Parchin military test facility once modalities of Iran-IAEA cooperation have been agreed on, reminding that the facility is a highly sensitive military site already visited by inspectors twice in January and November 2005.
As a sign of a breakthrough, Soltaniyeh, who headed the Iranian delegation in two days of talks with the IAEA in Vienna, announced on Tuesday that the two sides have made some progress in establishing a framework to settle the outstanding issues concerning Tehran's peaceful nuclear program.
Soltaniyeh, who was speaking in a joint press conference with IAEA's Deputy Director-General Herman Nackaerts yesterday, stressed that they had a 2-day intensive talk with the Agency officials and made some progress concerning modality and a framework to settle remaining issues.
Iran's permanent representative in the IAEA said that atmosphere of talks between Iran and the Agency in the past 2 days was "constructive and friendly", adding that in this round of talks the two sides had progress concerning preparation of modality.