Iran signals nuke sites off limits to IAEA

"It is not a matter of unlimited commitments and unlimited insp-ections," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters when asked if International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) teams would be able to probe two suspect military facilities.

"We will act in accordance with the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), our duties and responsibilities," Asefi added.

The IAEA is mandated under the NPT to verify that all nuclear material in a country is declared and not being diverted for nuclear weapons purposes, as the United States claims is the case in Iran.

But under the NPT and even its additional protocol -- also signed by Iran -- the agency has limited inspection powers.

The ^ienna-based watchdog has asked Iran if it can visit the Parchin military base east of Tehran, where US officials have said the Iranians may be testing "high-explosive shaped charges with an inert core of depleted uranium" as a dry test for how a bomb with fissile material would work.