Iran’s Qashqavi rejects military base remarks reports

Bloomberg

By Ladane Nasseri

Iranian deputy foreign minister Hassan Qashqavi rejected reports citing him as saying that Iran would open its Parchin military base to the United Nations’ atomic agency if there is an end to threats against the country.

“In my speech, which I delivered in Tehran University, there are two subjects,” Qashqavi said in an interview with Press TV published on the state-run news channel’s website late yesterday. Qashvai said part of his speech was on “national security of Iran and the other was about the nuclear issue” and a present reporter had “mixed” the “two separate issues.”

In a report published by Iran Diplomacy, a website run by former Iranian diplomats, Qashqavi was quoted as saying this week “If external threats are cooled off, the possibility will be given to visit the Parchin site.” He didn’t elaborate on conditions for allowing the visit or threats the country faces.

The IAEA has identified its top goal in Iran as being a visit to Parchin, a military base about 30 kilometers (19 miles) southeast of Tehran. The IAEA says it was given intelligence information showing Iran may have constructed a blast chamber for testing nuclear-weapons components at the site. Iran says the evidence given to the nuclear agency by unnamed countries was forged, that it hasn’t worked on developing an atomic weapon and its nuclear activities are aimed at securing energy.