The chief of the U.N. nuclear agency acknowledged Monday that samples used to determine whether Iran tried to develop a nuclear weapon were collected by the Iranians instead of agency experts, but insisted the probe stands up to strict agency standards. 
 
 Such sampling of soil, air or dust from equipment is usually done by the International Atomic Energy Agency's own experts. But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano confirmed that Iranians carried out that part of the probe at Parchin, where the agency suspects that explosive triggers for nuclear weapons might have been tested in the past. 
 
 Diplomats say Iran insisted on the compromise as a condition for any probe of Parchin. 
 
 Deputy IAEA Director General Tero Varjoranta said that there have been over 40 instances of letting a country being inspected use their own nationals to do their own sampling and that the process is only a small part of a rigid regimen established by the agency to make sure there is no cheating. 
 
 He said the criteria at Parchin included: invasive monitoring by video and still cameras while the sampling took place; GPS tracking of the sampling process; IAEA agreement on where the samples were to be taken; review by unspecified peers of the inspection process; risk assessment and strict observance to make sure that procedures were followed step by step. 
 
 "We feel fully confident that the process and the result so far are fully in line with our safeguards practices," he said, standing next to Amano at a Vienna news conference. 
 
 Former IAEA deputy director general Olli Heinonen has described Iran as a particularly sensitive case however, saying he knows of no other case where 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 confidential draft agreement between the sides seen last month by The Associated Press. The draft said that Iranian experts, monitored by video and still cameras, would gather environmental samples at the site and hand them over to the agency for analysis. 
 
 Iran's atomic energy agency spokesman, Behrouz Kalmandi, said IAEA experts were not physically present during the sampling. But Amano said the procedure meets strict agency criteria that ensure "the integrity of the sampling process and the authenticity of the samples." 
 
 Amano spoke a day after he was taken on what Iranian 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 renovation work." 
 
 He appeared to be referring to the building where the agency suspects that weapons experiments were conducted in the past. The agency has frequently said that subsequent renovation work at and near the building could hamper the IAEA probe, a position Amano repeated on Monday. 
 
 Amano's one-day visit to Iran is part of an assessment due in December that will feed into the nuclear deal reached in July between Tehran and six world powers and will help to determine whether sanctions will be lifted. 
 
 Iran denies it has ever sought nuclear weapons, and insists Parchin is a conventional military site. Tehran has refused to allow inspections of its military sites as part of the nuclear deal, saying it fears foreign espionage. 
 
 Western nations have long suspected Iran's nuclear program has a secret military dimension. Iran insists the program is entirely devoted to peaceful purposes like power generation and cancer treatment. 
 
 Under the July agreement, Iran would curb its nuclear activities and submit to new inspections in return for billions of dollars in sanctions relief. 
 
 A special Iranian parliamentary committee is reviewing the deal to prepare a report for lawmakers. Late Sunday, a member of the committee, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, said he expected parliament would approve the deal. ||||| VIENNA Environmental samples have been taken at a sensitive military site in Iran, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Monday, citing "significant progress" in its investigation of Tehran's past activities. 
 
 Inspecting the Parchin military complex is a crucial part of the International Atomic Energy Agency's inquiry into whether Iran earlier conducted experiments there related to developing nuclear weapons. Iran has not granted U.N. nuclear inspectors access to Parchin for a decade. 
 
 The IAEA is due to provide an assessment of "possible military dimensions" of Iran's nuclear program by the end of the year. That report is a vital confidence-building aspect of Iran's landmark deal with six major powers reached in July, under which restrictions will be placed on Tehran's atomic energy activities in exchange for a lifting of sanctions. 
 
 IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano said he and the head of the agency's Department of Safeguards, which carries out inspections, visited a building at the Parchin site on Sunday that the agency had previously only observed by satellite. 
 
 "Inside the building, we saw indications of recent renovation work," Amano said in a statement he read to reporters in Vienna, where his agency is based. "There was no equipment in the building." 
 
 The IAEA did not identify the building or its location within the sprawling complex at Parchin, where Western intelligence has suggested Tehran carried out tests relevant to nuclear bomb detonations more than a decade ago. Iran has dismissed the intelligence as "fabricated". 
 
 But in a report to its Board of Governors last month, the IAEA said activities it had observed at a location within Parchin since 2012 could undermine its ability to verify what activity occurred there. Amano repeated this point on Monday. 
 
 Those observations include the apparent construction of a small extension to a building, as well as the presence of vehicles and what seemed to be building materials, it said. 
 
 In a confidential report to the board on Monday obtained by Reuters, Amano said the building to which the small extension had been added was not "the main building of interest". 
 
 "Following the visit, this extension is not a matter of concern to the agency," the report said. 
 
 The IAEA has drawn criticism over a confidential arrangement with Iran governing how inspections are done at Parchin. Critics of the international powers' deal with Iran have argued that the accord on inspections limits the IAEA's ability to investigate and gives Iran too much influence in the collection of samples. 
 
 Under that arrangement, the samples would be taken by Iranian technicians while IAEA experts present at Parchin would observe and oversee the process, Western diplomats told Reuters. 
 
 INTEGRITY 
 
 Amano said the environmental samples had been taken before his visit to Parchin on Sunday. He did not explain exactly how the samples were collected, but said "the Iranian side played a part in the sample-taking process by swiping samples". 
 
 The IAEA has said it has a legal obligation to keep details of the arrangement confidential, but insists it is technically sound and will ensure the samples are not compromised. 
 
 "The agency can confirm the integrity of the sampling process and the authenticity of the samples, which were taken at places of interest to the agency at the particular location in Parchin," Amano told reporters. 
 
 "Authentication by the agency of the samples was achieved through use of an established verification process. The process was carried out under our responsibility and monitoring." The samples have been brought back to Vienna for analysis, he added. 
 
 Iran, however, appeared to play down the IAEA's role. A spokesman for Iran's atomic energy agency was quoted on Monday as saying that Iranian nuclear experts had taken environmental samples from Parchin without U.N. inspectors present. 
 
 "Iranian experts took samples from specific locations in Parchin facilities this week without IAEA inspectors being present," Behruz Kamalvandi of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran told the state news agency IRNA. 
 
 "They followed regulations and standards and the samples were given to IAEA's experts," he added. He did not rule out IAEA inspectors being present for future samples being taken. 
 
 In the text of a statement to reporters, the head of safeguards at the IAEA, Tero Varjoranta, said one important element of sample-taking was that it is carried out "under redundant continuous surveillance", suggesting that the agency had carried out such surveillance when swipes were taken. 
 
 When he read his statement immediately after Amano spoke, however, Varjoranta omitted that phrase. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in Dubai and and Shadia Nasralla in Vienna; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
– It's been 10 years since International Atomic Energy Agency reps have visited Iran's Parchin military site, but they were there yesterday to inspect a building and take environmental samples as part of their quest to keep a sharp eye on the country's nuclear machinations, Reuters reports. Yukiya Amano, the director general of the watchdog group, and the head of the IAEA's Department of Safeguards were on site to check out the unidentified building, which Amano says was devoid of equipment and showed "indications of recent renovation work," per the news agency. Environmental samples were also taken and sent to Vienna for analysis, which the IAEA notes counts as "significant progress" in monitoring a site whose only oversight by the IAEA has been via satellite over the past decade. The group is due to offer a report on "possible military dimensions" of the site, long suspected of carrying out tests related to nuclear weapon detonations, by year's end. The environmental samples, however, are already controversial thanks to the IAEA's confidential deal with Iran that lets the country hold sway over those inspections, the news agency notes. Amano acknowledged that "the Iranian side played a part in the sample-taking process by swiping samples," though he told reporters at a Vienna news conference today the samples' "authenticity" was ensured via an "established verification process." Amano also said IAEA monitored the sample-gathering, though a statement given by an Iranian atomic energy agency rep to the IRNA state news agency said the samples were taken "without IAEA inspectors being present." At today's news conference, IAEA's deputy director general explained that away, noting there was "invasive monitoring" via video and still cameras, as well as GPS tracking and review by "unspecified peers," as Fox News puts it.