(JTA) — Iran will not allow the United Nations nuclear watchdog to visit Iran’s Parchin military complex, accusing inspectors of being "Western spies."
Iranian lawmaker Evaz Heidarpour told the national media that the United States and Western countries were trying to gain access to Iran’s military secrets by sending representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect the complex.
“Parchin industries are non-nuclear military industries and we will not allow Western spies to inspect our military technology,” he said Sunday, according to the Tehran Times.
The IAEA has insisted on visiting the site in advance of negotiations between the Islamic Republic and six world powers — the United States, France, Russia, China, Britain and Germany — scheduled to take place in Moscow.
In a report last year, the IAEA said it believed that Iran had built a containment chamber at Parchin in which to conduct high-explosives tests.
Earlier this month, new satellite imagery analyzed by a U.S. security think tank showed that Iran may be clearing nuclear evidence from the chamber.
In March, satellite images obtained by the IAEA reportedly showed what appeared to be crews and vehicles cleaning up radioactive evidence of tests of a device used to create a nuclear explosion, The Associated Press reported.
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