Special to WorldTribune.com
Iran moved equipment out of the Parchin nuclear site in an effort to “sanitize” the site before inspectors visited last month, according to a report.
The report by Fox News said that a “containment vessel” for testing nuclear equipment was removed from Parchin. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had earlier confirmed that the “vessel” was at the site.
A source told Fox News the missing device was also used to test triggers that could detonate a warhead. The source added that removal of the equipment would have made it more difficult for inspectors to test for radioactive residue.
House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Mike Pompeo, Kansas Republican, said that “it’s become clear that there was an effort to sanitize the site that went on for an extended period of time.
“It’s likely the case that the cleanup effort may well have mitigated anything that they could possibly have found during their inspection … As the primary guarantor of this deal, the administration has an obligation to redouble our efforts to get the surveillance and the verification right such that what the president said will be true, that the path for Iran to get a nuclear weapon were really closed.”
IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, who visited Iran on Sept. 21, confirmed that equipment was missing from the site but provided no further details.
“We entered a building which the Agency had previously only been able to observe using satellite imagery. Inside the building, we saw indications of recent renovation work. There was no equipment in the building,” Amano said.
“Our experts will now analyze this information and we will have discussions with Iran in the coming weeks, as foreseen in the Road-Map (Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers).”
The Obama administration’s response came from State Department spokesman John Kirby:
“We have long made our assessment of Iran’s past activities and it’s that assessment and the shared concerns by the international community about the nature of Iran’s past activities and Iran’s attempts to hide them that brought Iran to the negotiating table in the first place.”
Report: Iran ‘sanitized’ Parchin nuke site before inspection added by World Tribune on
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