IAEA Focus on Iran’s Parchin Site May Undermine Monitors

United Nations nuclear inspectors, negotiating today in Tehran over wider access to suspected atomic sites, risk undermining their work by focusing too narrowly on winning access to an Iranian military base, according to analysts including a former monitor.

International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have sought access to the Parchin base for more than a year after receiving intelligence that Iran built a blast chamber at the sprawling complex that could be used to test nuclear-weapons components. The IAEA may be relying too heavily on outside analysis, said Robert Kelley, the agency’s former lead inspector in Iraq.