John Kerry rebukes fellow Democrat Robert Menendez for revealing what he says is a “classified” clause in the Iran nuclear deal stating that Iran will be the one to provide the UN atomic agency with samples from sites with suspected nuclear activity.HuffPo says that this is from Parchin.
“That is a classified component of this,” Kerry says when the New Jersey senator asks about the section of the deal. Menendez says it is “the equivalent of the fox guarding the chicken coop.”
Parchin is a suspected nuclear weapons development center.
In March, 2012, examining Parchin was a high priority for the P5+1:
Six world powers demanded Iran keep its promise to let international inspectors visit a military installation where the U.N. nuclear watchdog believes explosives tests geared to developing atomic bombs may have taken place.
The joint call was an unusual show of unity among the powers on Iran before a planned revival of high-level talks as well as widening disquiet about the nature of Tehran's nuclear ambitions, with Israel threatening last-ditch military action.
Heaping pressure on Iran to come clean, the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany used a U.N. nuclear watchdog governors' meeting on Thursday to urge Tehran to grant prompt access to its Parchin military facility.
They voiced concern that no deal was reached between Iran and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors at talks in January and February, "including on the access to relevant sites in Iran, requested by the agency ... We urge Iran to fulfil its undertaking to grant access to Parchin."
The message was reinforced by a remarkably blunt statement from IAEA director Yukiya Amano accusing Tehran of seeking to "tie our hands" and restrict inspectors during their last two rounds of meetings.
His deputy Herman Nackaerts told Thursday's closed session of the IAEA board of governors session, according to one participant: "Due to major differences between Iran and the agency, agreement could not be reached."
Nackaerts, the IAEA's chief safeguards inspector, said it had information from satellite pictures showing "the precise location where we believe an explosive chamber is situated".
Then in May 2012, Iran bulldozed part of the Parchin complex...
...and then literally covered over other parts with pink tarp so they could not be seen by satellite.
So Iran is already known to be hiding evidence in Parchin.
And Kerry trusts Iran to take soil samples from a site that we know they want to keep hidden.
This is a slow-motion nightmare.
(h/t Yenta)