Iran nuclear chief accuses US, 'Israel' of pressuring IAEA to inspect damaged nuclear sites

• Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami accused the US and ‘Israel’ of pressuring the IAEA to inspect nuclear facilities damaged by military strikes.
• Tehran says the affected sites have not yet been secured for inspections and that there is no clear IAEA protocol for accessing facilities that have come under attack.

The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Eslami, accused the US and ‘Israel’ on Wednesday of pressuring the UN nuclear watchdog to inspect Iranian nuclear facilities damaged by military strikes, according to Iranian state media.

“At a time when the International Atomic Energy Agency has no such protocol and is not taking a position either, it is only the United States and ‘Israel’ that are applying pressure for the Agency to go to the damaged sites and inspect them,” Eslami said.

He claimed the pressure was aimed at determining the extent of damage caused by the military operations.

“The reason for this pressure is that they want to see what happened to these sites as a result of the military operations they carried out,” he said.

Eslami said Iran remains in a “wartime situation” and that nuclear facilities damaged in the strikes have not yet been secured for international inspections.

He also said facilities affected by military action are subject to legislation recently passed by Iran’s parliament.

According to Eslami, the IAEA does not have a clearly defined protocol governing inspections of nuclear sites that have been attacked.

The IAEA has not yet publicly responded to Eslami’s comments.