Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi has dismissed as “unscientific” recent reports by Western media regarding Iran’s Parchin military site.

“Some Western media outlets are trying to affect public opinion regarding the issue and capitalize on public unawareness to level accusations against Iran,” he said.

A number of reports in Western media had earlier claimed that Iran has “paved over large swaths” of the Parchin site, where the West accuses Iran of having conducted nuclear activities.


“Radioactive material is nothing that can be concealed by asphalting or otherwise,” he underlined.

Salehi has several times in the past said that not only the Western allegations about nuclear activities at the site are baseless, but also they are scientifically wrong, since traces of nuclear activity technically cannot be wiped out.

Salehi also referred to a request by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit the Parchin site and said that the issue would be discussed separately within the framework of Tehran-IAEA negotiations.

Pointing to the latest IAEA report on Iran released Wednesday afternoon in the Austrian capital of Vienna, the AEOI director described it as a “commonplace and recurrent move,” and added, “In this report, the agency has referred to the details of Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities such as the number of centrifuges.”

Salehi also stated that completion work is running its normal course at Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, and that after all the tests are carried out and when “we are assured of the proper functioning of the equipment,” the Russian contractor will then hand over the power plant to the Iranian side as scheduled.

After Iran takes over the plant, he said, the number of Russian experts at the facility will gradually be reduced in three years’ time.

Salehi reiterated that Iran is not very much concerned about the delivery time, and added, “What is important is that we are assured of the proper functioning of the power plant, and then we will take over the facility.”

This comes as an IAEA spokesman announced Wednesday that it will hold its next meeting with Iran on September 27 in the Austrian capital, Vienna.

The talks will be the 11th round of discussions between Iran and IAEA since early last year. The two sides last met in Vienna on May 15.

The line-up of the two negotiating teams is expected to change for the upcoming talks.

Iran recently appointed Reza Najafi to replace Ali-Asghar Soltanieh as its representative at the UN’s nuclear agency. The IAEA chief inspector, Herman Nackaerts, is also due to retire in September.

 

News ID 185164