The director general visited the site of Parchin, together with the head of the Department of Safeguards, Tero Varjoranta," the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement. ...
Tehran denies conducting research related to nuclear weapons at Parchin or anywhere else in the country.
A spokeswoman for the IAEA declined to provide details on the visit to Parchin by the director general, Yukiya Amano. Iranian state media described it as ceremonial rather than an inspection of the sprawling site.
The Iranian media's characterization is correct, as I wrote here:
Here is the text of this side deal which includes this gem:
The above mentioned measures would be followed, as a courtesy by Iran, by a public visit of the Director General, as a dignitary guest of the Government of Iran, accompanied by his deputy for safeguards.
So in the side deal, after the pretend inspecting is completed, Iran also agreed to a dog and pony show by the DG of the IAEA to Parchin--the only IAEA official to visit the site--to create the illusion that the IAEA inspected the site.
The farcical inspections take place in the shadows--or they are supposed to, anyway.
The purely "courtesy" visit is to take place under the glare of the photographers. Why would that be?
So the dog and pony show is done. Now the West can get on with the serious work of pretending to believe Iran's disavowal of any nuclear weapon ambitions.
Have a super sparkly day.
UPDATE: While the cameras prepared to roll for the high profile courtesy visit, the Iranians took samples at the site to give to the IAEA:
Environmental samples were taken before his visit on Sunday, and he said "the Iranian side played a part in the sample-taking process by swiping samples".
But don't worry, the IAEA says they monitored the whole thing.
Why even have a courtesy visit? What was accomplished by this visit other than producing visuals to disguise the fact that the IAEA isn't actually allowed to get close to the site in any meaningful way?
So Iran pretends that they aren't developing nuclear weapons and we go to great efforts to pretend to believe Iran.
