* Parchin suspected site of nuclear-related experiments
* ISIS think tank says images show new activity at Parchin
* Access to Parchin part of nuclear deal
* Iran denies its nuclear programme has military aspects
(Adds U.S. State Department and White House comment paragraphs
10-12)
VIENNA, Aug 6 (Reuters) - A U.S. think tank said Iran might
be cleaning up its Parchin military site, where some countries
suspect experiments may have taken place in a possible atomic
weapons programme, but Iran denied this on Thursday.
The U.S.-based Institute for Science and International
Security (ISIS) pointed to satellite images showing vehicles and
container-like objects being moved at Parchin. Iran said this
was part of road works in the area.
ISIS said the images were taken after Iran signed a major
deal with world powers to curb its nuclear activities in
exchange for sanctions relief. ID:nL5N0ZT1TT
Such activity might complicate the work of the U.N.'s
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose job it is to
judge whether Iran's past atomic activity had any military
dimensions, including through access to Parchin. ID:nL5N0ZU1HA
"This renewed activity occurring after the signing of the
(July 14 deal) raises obvious concerns that Iran is conducting
further sanitisation efforts to defeat IAEA verification," the
Washington-based think tank said in a report.
"This renewed activity may be a last ditch effort to try to
ensure that no incriminating evidence will be found," said ISIS,
which was founded by a former IAEA nuclear inspector to bring
scientific expertise to debates about nuclear weapons.
Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York issued a
statement saying it "strongly denies and rejects the baseless
claims about the so-called clean-up operations in the Parchin
Military Complex".
It said there was construction work at Parchin to repair a
road and denounced "the extensive vicious campaign at work ...
to poison the positive environment at the global level."
"The Islamic Republic of Iran.. has never had any military
nuclear activity and has never been engaged in any
unconventional act that would need a hasty cover-up," it added.
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on
Thursday he could not confirm the group's findings but that any
clean up effort would be "cause for concern." He said the United
States is confident it knows what has occurred at Parchin as
well as its ability to detect previous nuclear activity at any
Iranian site.
"You can't cover up past nuclear activity very easily - it
lasts for decades, even longer," Toner said.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest separately played down
any such Iranian efforts, although he said at a daily briefing
he could not discuss any specific intelligence matters.
According to data given to the IAEA by some member states,
Parchin might have housed hydrodynamic experiments to assess how
specific materials react under high pressure, such as in a
nuclear blast. ID:nL5N0ZE0G7
A diplomat familiar with the Iran file said that the images
showed the difficulty of implementing the July deal. "Old habits
die hard," he said, referring to Iran, which in the past had
failed to declare some of its nuclear activities to the IAEA.
The Vienna-based agency, which had no immediate comment on
the ISIS report, said in its latest extensive Iran report that
it continued to observe vehicles and construction material at
Parchin and that activities there since 2012 are likely to have
undermined its ability to conduct verification.
As a precondition to full sanctions relief, Tehran must
provide sufficient information to the IAEA by Oct. 15 to allow
it to prepare a final report on its past nuclear programme.
The Obama administration is defending the nuclear deal with
Iran against strong opposition by some lawmakers who also
criticise the IAEA for not releasing its own agreement with Iran
to resolve concerns about Iran's nuclear past.
"I explained that my legal obligation is to protect
safeguards confidentiality and this is an essential element of
the international safeguards regime," IAEA head Yukiya Amano
said after meeting U.S. politicians this week. ID:nL1N10G21K
ID:nL1N10G25S