Iran dismisses new nuke site charge as “a new lie”

Reuters: A senior Iranian official said on Thursday that the latest allegation that Tehran is hiding a nuclear site from U.N. inspectors was a lie and denied that the U.N. nuclear watchdog had even asked to visit it.
“This is a new lie, like the last 13 lies based on news reports that have been proved to be lies,” Hossein Mousavian, Iran’s chief delegate to this week’s meeting in Vienna of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told Reuters. Reuters

VIENNA – A senior Iranian official said on Thursday that the latest allegation that Tehran is hiding a nuclear site from U.N. inspectors was a lie and denied that the U.N. nuclear watchdog had even asked to visit it.

“This is a new lie, like the last 13 lies based on news reports that have been proved to be lies,” Hossein Mousavian, Iran’s chief delegate to this week’s meeting in Vienna of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told Reuters.

A prominent nuclear expert had said on Wednesday that new satellite images showed the Parchin military complex, southeast of Tehran, may be a site for research, testing and production of nuclear weapons.

David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and head of of the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank, also said that the IAEA had requested to inspect the site but that the request had been ignored.

Mousavian said: “They have not asked to see the site.”

He added that the allegation was timed to influence discussions on a draft resolution on Iran’s nuclear programme that could set the stage for November showdown at the IAEA.