Iran dealFrance will not sign off on a nuclear deal with Iran if military sites are off limits to inspectors
Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, said France will not accept a deal on Iran’s nuclear program if Tehran refuses to allow inspections of its military sites as part of the final agreement. Throughout the negotiations with Iran, France has taken a tougher stance toward Iran than the other negotiating countries, known as the P5 + 1 (the five permanent members of the Security Council – the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, and France – and Germany). “France will not accept a deal if it is not clear that inspections can be done at all Iranian installations, including military sites,” Fabius told the national assembly in Paris.
Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, said France will not accept a deal on Iran’s nuclear program if Tehran refuses to allow inspections of its military sites as part of the final agreement. Throughout the negotiations with Iran, France has taken a tougher stance toward Iran than the other negotiating countries, known as the P5 + 1 (the five permanent members of the Security Council – the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, and France – and Germany).
“France will not accept a deal if it is not clear that inspections can be done at all Iranian installations, including military sites,” Fabius told the national assembly in Paris on Wednesday, urging other negotiating partners to adopt a similar position.
The Guardian notes that Fabius’s comments came a week after Iran’s supreme leader, ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted he would not allow the Iranian negotiating team to accept inspections of military sites or questioning of the country’s nuclear scientists.
“We have already said that we will not allow any inspections of military sites by foreigners,” the ayatollah said last week. “They also say that we must allow interviews with nuclear scientists. This is interrogation. I will not allow foreigners to come and talk to scientists who have advanced the science to this level.”
Fabius said: “Yes to an agreement, but not to an agreement that will enable Iran to have the atomic bomb. That is the position of France, which is independent and peaceful.”
Talks resumed in the Austrian capital, Vienna, on Wednesday for addressing the remaining issues concerning the final agreement, which was initially expected to be reached by the end of June, but diplomats have since said that the self-imposed deadline could be extended.
“We are not bound by time, but we are committed to this issue that a good agreement with details that are favorable to us is hammered out, even if it may take a long time,” said Abbas Araqchi, a senior Iranian negotiator, according to the Iranian state-run Press TV.
The French ambassador to the United States, Gérard Araud, tweeted on Tuesday: “Our goal is to get an agreement by the deadline. Likely that Iran will wait for the last days for compromising, like in March.”
Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the additional protocol of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that Iran has agreed to implement would give the IAEA the right to request inspections of all nuclear facilities, including military sites.
Earlier this week, Araqchi was quoted by journalists to have said that his country was prepared to grant “managed access” to military sites, but denied that statement later.
