Deputy chief of staff Jazzayeri suggests negotiators ‘avoid stepping into this realm’
Foreigners will never be allowed access to Iran’s military sites, the deputy chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces said on Friday.
“We call on the negotiating sides to avoid stepping into this realm; because access to military centers will not be allowed under any condition,” Brigadier General Massoud Jazzayeri said, according to Iran’s Fars news agency.
Inspection procedures for suspect sites has been a major point of disagreement in world powers’ nuclear talks with Iran. The Iranian leadership has consistently said it will not allow outside inspectors into suspect military facilities.
On Friday Ehud Yaari, the Middle East affairs commentator for Israel’s Channel 2 television said a deal had been reached between the world powers and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program after a series of major American concessions.
According to Yaari US negotiators have given in to Iranian demands that inspections of military sites are “managed” — in other words, there will be no surprise visits, only those that are pre-arranged and approved by the Iranian regime.
Yaari, Israel’s most respected Middle East analyst, said the deal was reached because the Americans “have made a series of capitulations over the past two to three weeks in almost every key aspect that was being debated.”
The aim of the agreement is to put a negotiated end to a 13-year standoff with Iran over its suspect nuclear program and to block its pathway to developing a nuclear bomb in exchange for lifting biting global sanctions. Israel’s leadership has relentlessly opposed the emerging agreement, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that it will pave Iran’s path to a nuclear arsenal.
Yaari said that even those in the US who had supported the agreement with Iran “admit that it is worse than they thought.” Now, he said, the ball is in the court of Democratic lawmakers who have to decide whether to support their president as he seeks to secure congressional approval, or to join the vocal Republican opposition to an agreement.
As reported by The Times of Israel