Suspicious activity at Parchin (illustration)
Suspicious activity at Parchin (illustration)Reuters

Iran on Thursday denied reports it had tried to clean up suspicious activities at the Parchin military complex outside the capital, Tehran, ahead of a planned United Nations inspection, Al Jazeera reports.

The Islamic Republic dismissed a report by Bloomberg news on Wednesday, which said that American intelligence had evidence the site was being sanitized in broad daylight, days after Iran agreed to a nuclear deal with world powers.

In a statement, Iran's UN mission said opponents are carrying out a "vicious" campaign "to poison the positive environment at the global level" and derail the agreement.

"These claims are preposterous and the repetition of the similar unfounded claims that reappear from time to time and have been disproved each time," the statement said, according to Al Jazeera.

On Wednesday, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said satellite images showed "renewed activity at a site" inside Parchin, which the West has suspected of being used for nuclear activities.

The nuclear non-proliferation group said the images, taken after the Vienna deal was announced, raised "obvious concerns that Iran was conducting further sanitization efforts to defeat" verification by UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Iran's UN mission, however, called the reports "baseless", adding that construction work at the military complex, which also includes offices and residential buildings, is "quite normal".

It said "extensive construction works have been underway to repair the road" running opposite a dam near Parchin.

"These works required the use of heavy bulldozers and other heavy construction machinery in the area," it added, according to Al Jazeera.

Satellite evidence in 2014 and in 2012 suggested that nuclear bomb triggering devices are being tested in Parchin. Iran has in the past refused to allow visiting IAEA inspectors to enter the site, deepening suspicions over the work being done at the complex.