Special to WorldTribune.com

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Sept. 21 that samples collected by Iran’s experts at the Parchin nuclear site meet the IAEA’s standards.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, who met with top Iranian officials and visited the Parchin facility on Sept. 20, said the samples had been taken before his visit. He did not explain exactly how the samples were taken, but said “the Iranian side played a part in the sample-taking process by swiping samples.”

The IAEA has said it has a legal obligation to keep details of the arrangement confidential, but insists it is technically sound and will ensure the samples are not compromised.

“The agency can confirm the integrity of the sampling process and the authenticity of the samples, which were taken at places of interest to the agency at the particular location in Parchin,” Amano told reporters.

“Authentication by the agency of the samples was achieved through use of an established verification process. The process was carried out under our responsibility and monitoring.” The samples have been brought back to Vienna for analysis, he added.

Iran, however, said that its nuclear experts had taken the samples from Parchin “without IAEA inspectors being present,” Behruz Kamalvandi of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran told the state news agency IRNA.

“They followed regulations and standards and the samples were given to IAEA’s experts,” he added. He did not rule out IAEA inspectors being present for future samples being taken.

The confidential agreement is said to give Iran permission to collect its own samples, video- and photo-monitored Iranian officials are permitted to take samples from the site and then turn them over to the United Nations agency for testing, according to an Associated Press review of the agreement.

Republican members of Congress, including presidential candidates Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, have called on the White House to release so-called “side deals” made with the Iranians, which the administration and the IAEA have maintained are not side deals and are standard in these sorts of agreements. Congress passed a review bill earlier this year which was signed by President Barack Obama. Rubio, Cruz and others have argued that the president has not followed the requirements of the bill.

“Given the extra-legal way in which President Obama ignored the requirements of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and failed to submit secret side deals with the International Atomic Energy Agency, we need to restrict funding for the deal’s implementation unless Iran has completely come clean about its past nuclear weapons research,” Rubio wrote in a Medium post last week.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told CBS’s Steve Kroft that he believed it is very likely that Iran’s parliament and security council would approve of the nuclear framework.

“The enmity that existed between the United States and Iran over the decades, the distance, the disagreements, the lack of trust, will not go away soon. What’s important is which direction we are heading? Are we heading towards amplifying the enmity or decreasing this enmity? I believe we have taken the first steps towards decreasing this enmity,” Rouhani said in an interview taped Sept. 13 for “60 Minutes.”

  IAEA gives thumbs up to Parchin samples collected by Iran inspectors, Parchin nuclear site, WorldTribune.com, Yukiya Amano