“Inspecting Iran’s military facilities is a dream that will never come true”, said the Islamic Republic Foreign Ministry’s spokesman, Bahram Ghasemi in a press conference on Monday, August 7.
Ghasemi was responding to a recent controversial report filed by the Associated Press.
On July 27, the Associated Press, quoting unnamed “senior” U.S. sources, reported that the Trump administration was pushing for inspections of “suspicious Iranian military sites,” either to prove that Tehran was violating Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA (Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers) or force the Islamic Republic to refuse, which could cause the whole agreement to collapse.
JCPOA has “serious flaws” that if not quickly addressed, President Donald Trump will probably seek a way out of it, AP sources maintained.
Reacting to AP’s report, Ghasemi emphasized that, no matter what, Iran will not be the first to leave the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), adding, that the comments attributed to the White House “are a piece of satire, written by a satirist. We will remain vigilant and take all necessary measures if the US breaches the deal”.
Meanwhile, the spokesman asserted, “There has been a wall of mistrust between US and Iran and American officials' recent remarks and moves make it higher than before”.
Furthermore, he insisted that Tehran will never renegotiate the JCPOA and will make every effort to preserve it, Ghasemi reiterated.
Earlier, the Supreme Leader’s Advisor for foreign affairs, Ali Akbar Velayati had also angrily reacted to reports that President Donald Trump is seeking access for inspections of “suspicious” military sites in Iran.
“Under no circumstances Americans will be allowed to inspect Iranian military sites”, Velayati said on August 5.
“They (American inspectors) are neither allowed, nor would they dare to violate Iran's security domain,” Velayati, a former foreign minister, retorted.
Furthermore, Velayati maintained that such “empty” US remarks would only “discredit” Washington on the international scene.
However, AP had mentioned IAEA and not American inspectors. Therefore, why Velayati emphasized on the term, “American” inspectors, is not yet clear.
President Trump’s administration considers the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps’ (IRGC) activities in the region and Iran’s ballistic missile programs as a threat against stability of the region and its allies in the Middle East.
Tehran has always dismissed these interpretations as unfounded.
Donald Trump, during his campaign for presidency repeatedly said that JCPOA is “a very, very bad deal” and, if elected, he will tear it up.
Nevertheless, after entering the White House, Trump and his close advisors have preferred to avoid straight anti-JCPOA comments, only saying that they will review it.