Special to WorldTribune.com

Nuclear security experts are calling on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to release details contained in the Iran nuclear agreement on how Iran’s Parchin nuclear facility will be inspected.

The experts said failure to disclose the details was damaging the credibility of the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog. The view of the experts has been rejected by the IAEA and the United States government.

Critics of the U.S. administration say President Barack Obama has given Iran too much leeway to conduct its own inspections at Parchin, including taking samples.

The inspections are needed to resolve questions about whether Iran did research in the past at Parchin related to building a nuclear weapon.

“(Details) should be released because it’s undermining the IAEA’s credibility. Whatever the outcome of the sampling, the secrecy makes it harder to determine whether it’s a credible sampling approach,” said David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

Former IAEA deputy director-general Olli Heinonen, now at Harvard University, said the secrecy could not be justified.

“This is a very unusual IAEA verification approach, which has no reason to be confidential unless a very special reason — proprietary, economic or security — calls for it,” he said.

The IAEA contends that it is legally obligated to keep details of the arrangement confidential, but insists the deal is technically sound and will ensure the samples are not compromised.

Non-proliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis of the Monterey Institute of International Studies and founder of the ArmsControlWonk.com blog, agreed. Releasing the details under pressure would undermine countries’ trust in the agency, he said.

“This would severely compromise the ability of the IAEA to carry out its mission around the world,” he said.

A report last month by the Associated Press said that Iran would be able to use its own inspectors to collect samples at Parchin without the IAEA present. Iranian officials have also said that international experts would not be allowed in.

Diplomats familiar with the deal told Reuters that UN inspectors would be present at Parchin to oversee the inspections. The diplomats, who have knowledge of the deal, said that while the IAEA inspectors will not be next to the Iranian technicians when they take samples, they will be at Parchin overseeing the process and cameras will record the process.

Iran cannot receive sanctions relief promised under the nuclear deal until the IAEA is satisfied it has answered outstanding questions about the so-called “possible military dimensions” of past Iranian nuclear research. IAEA inspectors have not visited the Parchin site in a decade.

  David Albright, Experts press IAEA to release Iran deal specifics on Parchin inspections, International Atomic Energy Agency, Olli Heinonen, WorldTribune.com