Iran said to allow inspectors access to disputed site

Tehran permits IAEA to visit Marivan nuclear facility, where the agency suspects high explosives were tested

Iranian officials are again offering international nuclear inspectors access to a site where purported experiments on high explosives may have taken place, Tehran’s state-run media reported Monday.

Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Reza Najafi, said that Tehran was willing allow UN inspectors into Marivan, a site the agency originally suspected could have hosted high explosive experiments that could be used to set off a nuclear charge.

Iran has called the allegation baseless, and said that since 2012, experts from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency are free to visit Marivan.

Najafi said Thursday that Tehran had previously invited IAEA officials to the site in an effort to dispel allegations of nuclear weapons development, but the UN’s nuclear agency declined the invitation.

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State television said Monday that Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman of Iran’s nuclear department, made the offer.

It came as a two-member UN watchdog team arrived in Tehran for talks amid the country’s nuclear negotiations with world powers.

Talks between Tehran and IAEA officials were set to begin Monday in Tehran, with representatives of the Atomic Energy Association of Iran, and Iran’s Foreign Ministry.

Earlier in March, IAEA head Yukiya Amano said that Iran still needed to hand over key information to the UN body necessary for its investigation of the country’s nuclear program.

“Iran has yet to provide explanations that enable the agency to clarify two outstanding practical measures,” Amano told the IAEA’s Board of Governors in Vienna, according to Reuters.