Your trusted source

The State Department on Wednesday downplayed concerns over a reported deal that would allow Iranian inspectors to investigate their own military site, according to edition.cnn.com.

The West has long believed the site, Parchin, was used for covert nuclear military activity, and access to the area has been a matter of negotiations between Tehran and world powers seeking to curb that program. Under the agreement reached by the parties in July, the process for inspections would be governed by agreements between Iran and the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

That the deal between Iran and the IAEA involves the use of Iranian inspectors to investigate Parchin was reported by The Associated Press, which described the agreement as part of the agency's inquiry into past nuclear activity.

The conclusion of that inquiry is a critical step in the implementation of international sanctions relief under a wider deal between Iran and world powers.

The specifics of the deal between the IAEA and Iran over the Parchin inspections are not included in the nuclear agreement, but Iran is required to satisfy the IAEA's concerns about its program under that deal.

"We're confident in the agency's technical plans for investigating the possible military dimensions of Iran's former program," State Department Spokesman John Kirby said, "issues that, in some cases, date back more than a decade."

Kirby would neither confirm nor deny the specifics of the IAEA deal reported by the AP.