The United Nations international nuclear inspection team arrived in Iran Sunday to visit the country’s nuclear facilities.
Iranian state media is reporting the inspectors will visit two separate sites in the coming days.
‘Most of the seven-step procedural agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been implemented within the framework of the joint plan of action,” said the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. “Following the visit, Iran will be able to say that the seven agreed measures between Iran and the agency have [been] fulfilled,” the spokesperson said. “Already six steps have been taken.”
Monday, representatives from Iran, the state sponsor of terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, are scheduled to come to New York to negotiate with world powers. The selected negotiators scheduled to meet in New York are coming from Iran, the UK, France, Germany, China, Russia, and the United States. The negotiators have established a July 20th deadline for resolving their outstanding issues.
Under the initial nuclear deal agreed upon in November, in exchange for the loosening of sanctions, Iran reportedly committed to halt uranium enrichment to 20%. Experts have warned that at 20% enrichment level, Iran can rapidly ascend to having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon in short notice. “Once you’re at 20%, you’re about 80% of the way there,” said Mark Hibbs, a nuclear policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The Associated Press report on the UN inspection suggested Iran President Rouhani was a “moderate” who faced pressure from “hard-liners” within the government who claim he has made “too many concessions in return for too little.” While “moderate” is a subjective term, there is little evidence to substantiate the claim made by the Associated Press. In fact, Rouhani’s record on capital punishment is among the highest Iran has ever seen in peacetime. Under Rouhani, Iran’s human rights abuses have not subsided, instead reaching record peaks. Since August of 2013, when Rouhani took office, well over 500 people have been executed. Many of the individuals worthy of capital punishment were declared “Moharebeh,” or those who are “waging war against God” in Islamic law.
“We intend to have dialogue with the world to solve our problems,” said President Rouhani regarding Iran’s nuclear facilities.
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