Azerbaijan, Baku, March. 09 / Trend D.Khatinoglu/
The alleged nuclear tests carried out at the Iranian Parchin Military Complex are just a suspicion, but if Iran had done any test there, it could remove the clue of such a test quite easily, Iranian origin expert Reza Taghizadeh told Trend.
The six world powers that have agreed to resume negotiations with Iran over its disputed nuclear programme issued a blunt request on Thursday that the Iranians must allow international inspectors unfettered access, most notably to Parchin, a large restricted military complex that the inspectors suspect may house a testing chamber for explosives used in atomic weapon triggers, the New York Times reported.
IAEA inspectors, including two military experts had earlier travelled twice to Tehran to inspect Iran's nuclear programme. Iranian officials said that inspecting nuclear facilities are not in the Agency inspectors' remit, but after finishing the second round of talks, IAEA chief Yukia Amano announced that Iran had not allowed inspectors to visit the Parchin military complex.
"It is disappointing that Iran did not accept our request to visit Parchin during either the first or second meetings," IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said on Feb.21.
Tension rose around Parchin when in November 2011, IAEA Chief Yukia Amano said during a report that he suspected that Parchin was the site where explosives relating to nuclear weapons had been recently tested.
Satellite images of an Iranian military facility appear to show trucks and earth-moving vehicles at the site, indicating attempted clean-up of radioactive traces possibly left by tests of a nuclear weapon trigger, diplomats told Associated Press on Wednesday.
Iran's representative to IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh rejected this report, saying Iran's nuclear activities are aimed at peaceful activities.
A member of Trend Expert Council Taghizadeh said that Iran can remove all clues at Parchin, including replacing the containment where the suspected test took place inside at night and then it will allow IAEA to visit there.
However Soltanieh told Trend on Feb.29 that Iran does not have any obligation to answer the IAEA's questions out of his commitments mentioned on Non-Proliferation Treaty. However, Iran and the Agency can schedule and agree on a framework to solve some doubts around Iran's nuclear activities.
Western countries alongside the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), doubt Iran's nuclear goals, accusing it of a probable military dimension of its disputed nuclear programme.
So far, the UN Security Council has imposed four rounds of resolutions on Iran asking it to halt its uranium enrichment programme and accept the additional protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran's main military manufacturing site at Parchin, near Tehran, has been suspected of carrying out nuclear tests since 2004.
IAEA former chief Mohammad Elbaradei asked Iran to show its Parchin activities in 2004 when rumours arose around the subject that Iran has been conducting secret experiments involving 'high explosive shaped charges with an inert core of depleted uranium (that is uranium from which most of the fissile isotope uranium-235 has been removed) to test the characteristics of an implosion type nuclear weapon.
Tension rose around Parchin again when in November 2011, IAEA Chief Yukia Amano said during a report that he suspected that Parchin was the site where explosives relating to nuclear weapons had been tested in recent years.
Taghizadeh says the IAEA's allegation has not been proved yet, but in case of it being true, Iran will allow the IAEA to inspect there after being sure that all clues have been removed.