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UP FRONT A3

Tuesday 22 September 2015

UN says Iran’s role in nuclear Pope Francis leads a Mass in the Plaza of the Revolution, in Holguin, Cuba, Monday, Sept. 21, 2015.

probe meets strict standards Francis marked a personal anniversary Monday, the day as a teenager he decided to become

GEORGE JAHN a priest. (Tony Gentile/Pool via AP)
Associated Press
VIENNA (AP) — The chief of the U.N. nuclear agen- Pope to Cuba: Be willing to change
cy acknowledged Monday that samples used to
determine whether Iran tried to develop a nuclear NICOLE WINFIELD Plaza of the Revolution said he didn’t know why it
weapon were collected by the Iranians instead of ANDREA RODRIGUEZ was packed with an esti- didn’t come to pass.
agency experts, but insisted the probe stands up to Associated Press mated 150,000 people for Asked if the Holy See would
strict agency standards. HOLGUIN, Cuba (AP) — the Mass, many dressed in lodge an official protest,
Such sampling of soil, air or dust from equipment Pope Francis marked the white to protect them from Lombardi demurred. He
is usually done by the International Atomic Energy anniversary Monday of the the sun. stressed that what was
Agency’s own experts. But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano day he decided as a teen- Security agents didn’t ap- planned was just a “pass-
confirmed that Iranians carried out that part of the ager to become a priest by pear to be letting members ing greeting,” not an of-
probe at Parchin, where the agency suspects that pressing a subtle message of the crowd get close to ficial meeting, and that it
explosive triggers for nuclear weapons might have to Cubans at a delicate him. On Sunday, an appar- was set up at the last min-
been tested in the past. point in their own history: ent dissident hung on to ute out of a “desire to show
Diplomats say Iran insisted on the compromise as a Overcome ideological pre- the popemobile in Havana an attention for everyone,
condition for any probe of Parchin. conceptions and be willing and seemed to be appeal- including dissidents.”
Deputy IAEA Director General Tero Varjoranta said to change. ing to the pontiff before the In his homily in Holguin, a
that there have been more than 40 instances of let- Francis traveled to Cuba’s man was dragged away. city of about 300,000, Fran-
ting a country being inspected use their own nation- fourth-largest city, Holguin, The head of the opposi- cis pressed some of the
als to do the sampling and that the process is only and celebrated a Mass tion group Ladies in White subtle themes he has de-
a small part of a rigid regimen established by the where Cuban rhythms said 22 of 24 members who veloped during this balanc-
agency to make sure there is no cheating. mixed with church hymns wanted to attend Fran- ing act of a Cuban visit. He
He said the criteria at Parchin included: invasive under a scorching tropi- cis’ Mass on Sunday were told the crowd of how Je-
monitoring by video and still cameras while the sam- cal sun. Later in the day, prevented from going by sus picked a lowly and de-
pling took place; GPS tracking of the sampling pro- he flew to Santiago for an Cuban security agents. spised tax collector, Mat-
cess; IAEA agreement on where the samples were to evening visit to the shrine of And two well-known Cu- thew, and instructed him
be taken; review by unspecified peers of the inspec- Cuba’s patron saint, and ban dissidents said agents without casting judgment
tion process; risk assessment and strict observance on Tuesday he will arrive in detained them after the to follow him. That act of
to make sure that procedures were followed step by Washington for the U.S. leg Vatican invited them to the mercy changed Matthew
step. of his visit to the two former pope’s vespers service at forever.
“We feel fully confident that the process and the re- Cold War enemies. Havana’s cathedral. Francis told the Cubans
sult so far are fully in line with our safeguards prac- Singing children and a The Vatican spokesman, that they, too, should allow
tices,” he said, standing next to Amano at a Vienna small crowd waving Cuban the Rev. Federico Lom- themselves “to slowly over-
news conference. and Vatican flags greeted bardi, confirmed that some come our preconceptions
Former IAEA deputy director general Olli Heinonen Francis on his arrival, some dissidents were invited to and our reluctance to think
has described Iran as a particularly sensitive case crying out, “Francis! Hol- events to receive a greet- that others, much less our-
however, saying he knows of no other case where guin is with you!” Holguin’s ing from the pope, but he selves, can change.”q
a country under investigation for possibly trying to
make nuclear weapons was permitted to use its own
personnel to collect environmental samples as part
of the investigation.
The Iran arrangement was first revealed in a confi-
dential draft agreement between the sides seen last
month by The Associated Press.
Iran’s atomic energy agency spokesman, Behrouz
Kalmandi, said IAEA experts were not physically pres-
ent during the sampling. But Amano said the proce-
dure meets strict agency criteria that ensure “the in-
tegrity of the sampling process and the authenticity
of the samples.”
Amano spoke a day after he was taken on what Ira-
nian media described as a ceremonial tour of the
military site. He told reporters in Vienna that he was
able to enter a building that the agency had been
observing via satellite and saw signs of “recent reno-
vation work.”q