Iran Offers Nuclear Inspectors One Chance to Look at Secret Facility

Nuclear inspectors investigating Iran have been particularly focused on a site in Parchin, especially since they've been specifically denied access there.

Nuclear inspectors investigating Iran have been particularly focused on a site in Parchin, especially since they've been specifically denied access there. On Tuesday the Iranian government said they could come in, but they'll only get one chance to inspect the weapons development site, and they won't get to see all of it. The inspectors have been expressing interest in the facility 18 miles southeast of Tehran since a November report in which the International Atomic Energy Agency "said that Iran had built a large containment chamber at Parchin, southeast of Tehran, to conduct high-explosives experiments that are 'strong indicators' of an effort to design atomic bombs," Reuters reports. The government most recently denied them access in February, to the IAEA's increasing frustration.

On Tuesday, the IAEA said Iran had changed its mind, but strict conditions pervade: "Parchin is a military site and accessing it is a time-consuming process, therefore visits cannot be allowed frequently... We will allow the IAEA to visit it one more time," Iran's diplomatic mission in Vienna said, according to the IAEA. On top of that, inspectors will only be allowed into two of the five areas they're interested in, The New York Times reported. No date's been set for the inspection, as the IAEA decides whether it will even accept Iran's conditions.