PHOTO: Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, with President Rouhani, August 2014

As US opponents of the Iran nuclear deal are focusing on arrangements for inspections, Tehran is setting out its lines on talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Under the terms of the July 14 agreement, sanctions will be lifted when the IAEA verifies Iranian compliance. The Agency has said that it hopes to provide the verification by mid-December.

The process for inspections and supervision is being established through talks between the IAEA and the Islamic Republic, parallel to the Iranian deal with the 5+1 Powers (US, Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia). In line with IAEA procedures, the discussions are confidential.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said that IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano is expected to guarantee the agency’s independence. He asserted that Iran’s concerns over confidentiality of information must be met: “We expect [the IAEA] to take into consideration our country’s security concerns based on the agency’s Statute and the Safeguards Agreement.”

Iran has claimed that inspectors gave information to hostile States in the past, blaming the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists on the leaks.

Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, emphasized on Saturday, “Definitely, the agreements between a country and the agency, which are classified, can by no means be presented to any other country.”

Amano is visiting the US next week to meet with members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about verification and monitoring.

American opponents of the deal have turned the confidential IAEA process into the claim of a “secret agreement” to cover up Iran’s continued pursuit of a militarized nuclear program. The campaign is being supported by high-profile outlets like The Wall Street Journal:

[Obama] has already evaded the constitutional obligation to submit consequential foreign commitments as treaties requiring ratification by two-thirds of the Senate….There’s no excuse to compound that evasion with side deals that Americans aren’t allowed to see.

The effort is also being bolstered by misleading articles over the process. The Daily Beast — misunderstanding not only the IAEA arrangements but also the confidentiality of correspondence between Governments — headlined on Friday, “The Iran Nuke Documents Obama Doesn’t Want You to See”.