Iran on Tuesday dismissed as "dreams" the idea that it might allow inspections of its military sites under the Islamic republic's nuclear deal with world powers. "What has been said about inspections of our military sites, which are completely confidential and classified, is the mere expression of dreams," government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht said. "We will not accept anything outside our frameworks from the Americans - especially visits to military sites," he told a televised weekly press conference. Ali Akbar Velayati, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's foreign policy adviser, also dismissed "sloganeering by the new US administration for domestic consumption".
Iran "will never allow Americans or non-Americans to visit military sites which are a sensitive, important and strategic part of national security", Velayati told state television. "The Americans should take the dream of visiting our military sites, using the pretext of the JCPOA (the nuclear deal) or any other pretext, to their graves."
The officials were reacting to media reports that Washington's UN envoy Nikki Haley last week discussed with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano access to Iranian military sites under the framework of verification of the 2015 nuclear accord. In its routine reports, the IAEA has said that Iran is in compliance with its landmark agreement with six major powers.
The landmark deal saw Iran curb its atomic activities and submit to closer IAEA inspections in order to make extremely difficult any attempt to make a nuclear weapon. In exchange, nuclear-related sanctions against Iran were removed. Other punitive measures by the West, including those relating to Iran's missile programme, remained in place or have been boosted. Haley's trip to Vienna, where the IAEA is based, came amid growing concerns about the accord's future, with US President Donald Trump calling it the "worst" deal ever and threatening to tear it up.
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