WarSclerotic

A U.S. institute tracking Iran’s nuclear program says recent satellite images it has analyzed show further major alterations of a military site that the U.N. has long tried to access to follow up suspicions that Tehran may have used it in attempts to develop atomic arms.

The Institute for Science and International Security released four new satellite images Thursday, showing what ISIS analysts said was “progressive asphalting” of an area of the Parchin military complex, which the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency has said was a possible location for testing conventional explosive triggers for a nuclear blast.

Photos of the Parchin compound dated from Dec. 12, 2011, to Aug. 13 this year and show a gradually increasing area of what appears to be blacktop around structures, with only about a quarter remaining bare in the last image.

Alluding to earlier satellite photos indicating dismantling of buildings, apparent hosing down of the area in what the IAEA fears may be an attempt to wash away evidence, and other work, ISIS said the images “clearly document activities at the Parchin site that are completely unrelated to any road-building activity.”

Iran has said the asphalting is part of regular maintenance and road work. But with its probe blocked — and signs of other activity — IAEA concerns have grown that this might be an attempt to cover up work on a weapons program while Iran keeps inspectors away.

Experts of the U.N. nuclear watchdog organization have met Iranian negotiators 10 times over the past 18 months in futile attempts to gain access to the site and test Tehran’s insistence that Parchin is a conventional military area with no link to nuclear tests.

Asphalting the area would make it more difficult to take soil samples to test for nuclear traces. Beyond the asphalt work, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano told reporters earlier this year he was also concerned about soil removal, and “possible dismantling of infrastructures” at Parchin. Because of such alleged activities, he said “it may no longer be possible to find anything even if we have access to the site.”

Olli Heinonen, the previous head of the IAEA’s Iran probe, also said the standoff meant any inspection by agency experts could be inconclusive even if they did get access. This meant Tehran had “lost an important opportunity” to prove that it had nothing to hide. He said that even without being able to inspect the facility, the IAEA had other information indicating Iranian interest in such explosive triggers and the role that the site might have played in this.

Heinonen said the paved area resembled a huge parking lot, but said that with “very little material movement and trucks driving in and out … [it is] hard to see what kind of work requires such parking lots.”

Iran dismisses suggestions it worked on atomic arms at Parchin or anywhere else. It has blamed the IAEA for the standoff, saying the agency had refused to agree on strict parameters that would govern its probe. The agency in turn says such an agreement would tie its hands by putting limits on what it could look for and whom it could question. It bases its suspicions of nuclear-weapons research and development by Iran on its own research and intelligence from the U.S., Israel and other Iran critics.

U.S. intelligence officials say they generally stand by a 2007 intelligence assessment that Iran stopped comprehensive secret work on developing nuclear arms in 2003. But Britain, France, Germany, Israel and other U.S. allies think such activities have continued past that date. That view is shared by the IAEA, which says some isolated and sporadic activities may be ongoing.