According to the White House version of the framework agreement, Iran must “grant access to the IAEA to investigate suspicious sites or allegations of a covert enrichment facility, conversion facility, centrifuge production facility, or yellowcake production facility anywhere in the country.”
But Iran said it never agreed to that, accused the White House of “lying,” and declared that military sites will be no-go areas to outsiders.
Doubling down on that stance, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps deputy commander Gen. Hossein Salami said that permitting foreigners access to military bases would amount to “occupation of our soil” and be a “national humiliation,” the Mehr news agency reported.
“Iran will not become a paradise of spies,” Salami told state television. “We will not roll out the red carpet for the enemy.”
On the second core issue in dispute, the timing of the easing of U.S. sanctions, the White House version of the framework agreement says the measures will be suspended only “after the IAEA has verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear-related steps.”
Khamenei and President Hasan Rouhani have both insisted, however, that the sanctions must go immediately a final agreement is signed.
During a joint press conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi Friday, President Obama appeared to soften on the issue, linking the suspension of sanctions not specifically to Iranian compliance but to the reaching of a final deal.
He said that he and Renzi had agreed in their talks “that until any final deal is reached, sanctions on Iran must continue to be fully and strictly enforced.”
Obama was asked later during the press conference if he could be “definitive” on the question of a phasing-out rather than an immediate lifting of sanctions.
Rather than do so, he deferred to the negotiators.
“With respect to the issue of sanctions coming down, I don’t want to get out ahead of [Secretary of State] John Kerry and my negotiators in terms of how to craft this.”
Part of the negotiators’ job, he said, “is to sometimes find formulas that get to our main concerns while allowing the other side to make a presentation to their body politic that is more acceptable.”
(CNSNews)
