Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that Tehran will not allow international nuclear inspectors to access its military sites or to question Iranian scientists as part of a deal with the U.S. and other world powers.
"We have already said that we will not allow any inspections of military sites by foreigners," Khamenei, who has the final say in all official state matters, told military commanders at a graduation ceremony, according to the official IRNA news agency.
"They also say that we must allow interviews with nuclear scientists. This is interrogation. I will not allow foreigners to come and talk to scientists who have advanced the science to this level," Khamenei said, pointing out that other countries also hide the identities of their nuclear experts.
A number of Iranian nuclear scientists were assassinated between 2010 and 2012, and Iran suspected the U.S. and Israel were behind the attacks, according to AFP.
Khamenei vowed that Iran will resist "coercion and excessive demands" from international negotiators, as any "intelligent government" would do.
Negotiators from the U.S., Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany established a framework nuclear agreement in March, and hope to reach a final accord by June 30 which would prevent Iran from developing atomic weapons in exchange for lifting of a number of economic sanctions.
Part of the framework agreement, according to a fact sheet released by the U.S. State Department, said any final deal would require Iran to grant the United Nations nuclear agency access to any "suspicious sites," reported The Associated Press.
Upon reaching the framework agreement, President Barack Obama released a statement saying, "Iran will face strict limitations on its program, and Iran has also agreed to the most robust and intrusive inspections and transparency regime ever negotiated for any nuclear program in history."
But that's simply not so, according to Khamenei and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
While Zarif said in late April that Iran was ready to accept the "highest level of international transparency" possible under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), he added this week the agreement doesn't allow unrestrained access to Tehran's military sites, in order to protect the country's "military or economic secrets," according to AFP.
Khamenei also warned Wednesday that Iran's enemies plan to conduct proxy wars on the Iranian borders in collusion with "silly" officials of Persian Gulf countries, to which he said Iran would respond with appropriate action, according to Press TV.
