Farideh Farhi
Upon his return to Iran from Geneva, Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator was very clear in only one respect. Responding to a question from the Iranian press, he stated that in Geneva there was no discussion of Iran’s suspension of uranium enrichment. Jalili is actually quite correct.
The Geneva talks were not supposed to be about suspension. They were intended to help launch an intermediary step – freezing the Iran's uranium enrichment program at its current level in exchange for the freezing of UN sanctions at the current level in order to engage in a dialogue over how to move to the next stage of actually negotiating over the package of incentives Iran has been offered if Iran suspends its uranium enrichment activities..
Beyond this selective clarity, however, Jalili’s language was an exercise in obfuscation. According to him, “what was discussed in the Geneva talks was merely focused on dialogue about the approaches of the sides regarding the continuation of the path of negotiations and specified structures and time lines in the direction of reaching a comprehensive agreement.”
I do not know whether Jalili has a problem in the use of the Persian language or the problem is in my understanding of the language but I had to read this statement at least 10 times to realize that he is doing his best to say that Iran wants to continue talks with the six countries present at Geneva (including the United States) without telling the Iranian public that in order to do this Iran has to accept the freeze for freeze formula.
So, he states flatly that there was no discussion of suspension in Geneva, which is true. But in the process he gives the impression that the negotiations will continue without Iran taking the step of agreeing to a freeze of its nuclear program at the current level.
Now the interesting question to me is why Jalili has such a hard time giving a straight answer to the question of whether Iran is willing to go for the freeze formula. After all, enriching at the current level, and not beyond, for only six weeks, give or take, is not suspension and should not harm Iran’s nuclear program. It also has potential benefits if the Iranian negotiators are able to pin down the elements of the incentives package offered to Iran more precisely. Again, after all, the major criticism of the incentives package inside Iran has always been that the package is full of immediate demands on Iran and lots of future and non-specified promises by the Europeans and the Americans. In addition, if there is any chance of convincing the United States to accept some sort of enrichment facilities on the Iranian territory (intrusively inspected and/or multinational), it has to come through negotiations that includes the Americans.
One possible answer to this question could be that Jalili is simply an inexperienced diplomat or negotiator. But the more likely answer to his verbal acrobatics (which does not necessarily exclude the first possibility) is that Ahmadinejad’s administration has turned the issue of Iran’s right to enrichment into such a national spectacle that Jalili has to worry about his moves being perceived by his hard-line audience as a retreat, rather than a mere sensible or even shrewd compromise at a time of great opportunity.
It is probably because of this worry that almost all the newspapers, news agencies, and websites close to the government (such as Farsnews, Rajanews, and Kayhan) are so busy trumpeting the Bush Administration’s “retreat” on negotiating with Iran, ironically approvingly quoting Wall Street Journal as a definite source for the fact that such a retreat has actually occurred. This is while there is literally nothing but the straightforward reporting of Jalili’s words in the reformist or centrist media, probably because there has yet again been a Supreme National Security Council directive forbidding any analysis or commentary about what happened at Geneva.
I am further willing to bet that this hard-line audience is also the reason why the non-paper Iran presented in Geneva does not include any written reference to the freeze on the Iranian part; only a freeze on the current level of sanctions! The worry is so overwhelming that it prevented Jalili to state, as Iran’s previous nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani plainly stated, that "the shift in U.S. diplomacy has created a very good opportunity for Iran and we should do our best to make use of it." Instead Jalili said, “We welcome the fact that the atmosphere of talks in Geneva was constructive and forward looking.” And this is the only comprehensible part of an otherwise very long sentence about Iran’s presence in and view of the talks being “strategic and long-term.”
My bet is that Jalili’s hope is that Solana can convince the six countries that a verbal commitment on the part of Tehran about what amount to an effective freeze would be sufficient for Iran’s interlocutors to continue the talks. It is of course for Solana and the other six countries to decide whether to cover for Jalili. I doubt that they will and I certainly hope that they do not. The news that Iran has agreed to a compromise in order to kick start stalled negotiations is something a good number of Iranians would probably be happy to hear about.
Read more on this article...
Showing posts with label Iran's nuclear program. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran's nuclear program. Show all posts
Monday, July 21, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
IAEA’s Latest Report on Iran: Time to Move On
Farideh Farhi
The full text of the much awaited IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear activities can be found here. It is an important report that finally brings an end to almost all the technical issues that in the past five years have concerned the IAEA regarding Iran’s declared civilian nuclear program. Last August the Agency and Iran laid out a Workplan to resolve issues that related to Iran’s past activities and on every issue, except one, Iran’s responses were deemed by the IAEA as either consistent with the Agency’s own finding or not inconsistent with them.
In this report the Agency once again states unambiguously that it “has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.” It also states that on the issues of Polonium-210 experiments and Gchine mine, contamination at a technical university and procurement of a former head of Iran’s Physics Research Center (PHRC). Hence, the conclusion: “the Agency considers those questions no longer outstanding at this stage,” repeated by ElBaradei’s in different words in this video (transcript here) “we have managed to clarify all the remaining outstanding issues, including the most important issue, which is the scope and nature of Iran’s enrichment program.”
Now, it can be argued that there is some ambiguity in the report regarding the use of the expression “not inconsistent with” instead of “consistent with,” with the former requiring further questioning and reporting particularly since much of it relate to the procurement activities of the Physics Research Center, an institution also under questioning regarding Iran’s alleged undeclared activities. Still the extent of IAEA’s acknowledgment of the plausibility of Iran’s explanations of past activities is an important breakthrough for that country.
The report also suggests that Iran has effectively and voluntarily implemented the Additional Protocol in the past few months, allowing the IAEA extensive inspections and access. But as discussed by Mohammad ElBaradei in the IAEA video, as well as in the report, this voluntarily implementation on a short terms basis is not sufficient for IAEA’s purposes of monitoring Iran’s present declared program. IAEA wants Iran to sign the Additional Protocol. Iran has said that its previous offer of signing the protocol is no longer on the table so long as Iran’s case at the UN Security Council. In short, Iran’s position is that it cannot be forced to sign an international agreement but it may consider doing so if the Western countries begin treating Iran’s nuclear program in the same way they treat other country’s nuclear programs. This position will be maintained even more steadfastly now that almost all the outstanding issues about Iran’s declared program have been resolved.
The one issue that has not been resolved involves “alleged studies” done by Iran that can be connected to weaponization ("Alleged studies" is the way they are identified by the IAEA but not surprisingly by the New York Times which talks about these studies as “evidence …that strongly suggested the country had experimented with technology to make a nuclear weapon.” For a look at the media coverage of the report see here). These studies come out of a laptop that was reportedly given to the U.S. intelligence by an Iranian “walk-in” source who stole the laptop from someone else (see earlier stories and analyses on the stolen laptop and documents here, here, and here. The most troublesome aspect of the information in the laptop was the plans for “the design for a missile re-entry vehicle, which could have a nuclear military dimension.”
In the Workplan signed in August 2007, Iran agreed to assess the documentation generated out of the laptop that alleges weaponization-related studies (not an actual experimentation with technology as NYT suggests) provided it was given the documentation. The language used in the work plan is interesting and worth mentioning:
“Iran reiterated that it considers the following alleged studies as politically motivated and baseless allegations. The Agency will however provide Iran with access to the documentation it has in its possession regarding: the Green Salt Project, the high explosive testing and the missile re-entry vehicle. As a sign of good will and cooperation with the Agency, upon receiving all related documents, Iran will review and inform the Agency of its assessment.”
The interesting thing about all this was that the Agency was not able to give Iran the documentation required for Iran to make its assessment until early February (February 3-5) and when it did so it was only partial documentation because the country in possession of the documents, namely the United States, either would not give the documents to the IAEA or would not give the IAEA permission to give the documents to Iran until then. It was only on February 15, or a mere one week before the publication of the current report, that Iran was informed that the IAEA is ready to give Iran a second batch of documents (reportedly a large amount of them dumped by the United States on the IAEA’s lap on that same day).
Iran’s response to the first batch of documents, which included subsequent clarifications to further IAEA questions, was that they were fabrications (with names of non-existent individuals and offices). Iran has yet to respond to the IAEA further requests of meeting over the second batch of documents released on February 15 for obvious shortage of time but there is reason to believe that after seeing the first batch of documents, Iran may not want to continue to play the game as its mid-February response stated explicitly that its assessment that the documents are fabricated was final (Note that in the above quoted section of the Workplan, assessment of the documents was the only thing Iran promised).
So here are a few questions to ponder at this point:
1. Why was the Bush Administration so late in dumping the documents on the IAEA? Were the documents suspect as suggested by initial reports about them? Was it because the U.S. did not want to be blamed for stifling the Workplan? And/or was it because once it became clear that the IAEA was about to announce all outstanding issues related to Iran’s past declared activities resolved, the Bush Administration felt that the late release of these documents were the only instruments it had to keep the Iran file going?
2. What is the IAEA expected to do if Iran insists that the documents are fabricated and IAEA’s own stance remains that these are “alleged weaponization studies that Iran supposedly conducted in the past,” (i.e., it cannot confirm the veracity of the documents) and IAEA has not “detected any use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies, nor does it have any credible information in this regard”? It is true that the IAEA makes an observation in paragraph 39 that the computer image made available to Iran showing "a schematic layout" of the inner cone of a re-entry vehicle, as being “assessed by the Agency as quite likely to be able to accommodate a nuclear device.” But it does not (and I assume cannot) make an assessment of whether the information itself is fabricated as Iran claims. Secondly, the Agency admits that neither the documents nor the IAEA can offer a link of these studies to any weaponization program. So for the coming year are we going to be facing a specter of a back and forth between Iran and the IAEA not over Iran’s nuclear program but over documents about alleged studies that no one (except the Iranians) seem to be sure whether they are fake or not? Isn’t this really hanging on to a pretty thin straw?
3. Will the IAEA be pressured to continue this process?
My sense is that this report will be used by both sides in ways that suits their purposes. Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, has already declared the report a vindication of Iran while the United States will again push and probably get a rather meaningless Security Council resolution that will not go much beyond the previous resolutions in terms of impact but presumably make a political point that the Security Council route is not really exhausted as the Iranian leaders, particularly Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claim.
But the reality is that most people associated with this process are exhausted and ready to move on (with the notable exception of the Bush Administration folks that are just simply exhausted). Perhaps ElBaradei’s last words in his interview gives us some hints about the exhaustion (and exasperation) the IAEA must be feeling regarding the continuation of the general political deadlock and the need to move on after years of what under other circumstances would be considered successful interaction between his Agency and a member country; interaction that has led to the resolution of significant technical issues:
“A durable solution requires confidence about Iran’s nuclear program, it requires a regional security arrangement, it requires normal trade relationship between Iran and the international community. As the Security Council stated, the ultimate aim should be normalization of relationships between Iran and the international community. Definitely the Agency will continue to do as much as we can to make sure that we also contribute to the confidence-building process with regard to the past and present nuclear activities in Iran, but naturally, we can not provide assurance about future intentions. That is inherently a diplomatic process that needs the engagement of all the parties."
I am sure some European governments and the Bush Administration will be upset and once again accuse ElBaradei for going beyond his technical mandate and talking about ways to overcome the deadlock politically and diplomatically. But in this day and age of failed policies shouldn’t calling it as is be everyone’s mandate? Read more on this article...
The full text of the much awaited IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear activities can be found here. It is an important report that finally brings an end to almost all the technical issues that in the past five years have concerned the IAEA regarding Iran’s declared civilian nuclear program. Last August the Agency and Iran laid out a Workplan to resolve issues that related to Iran’s past activities and on every issue, except one, Iran’s responses were deemed by the IAEA as either consistent with the Agency’s own finding or not inconsistent with them.
In this report the Agency once again states unambiguously that it “has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.” It also states that on the issues of Polonium-210 experiments and Gchine mine, contamination at a technical university and procurement of a former head of Iran’s Physics Research Center (PHRC). Hence, the conclusion: “the Agency considers those questions no longer outstanding at this stage,” repeated by ElBaradei’s in different words in this video (transcript here) “we have managed to clarify all the remaining outstanding issues, including the most important issue, which is the scope and nature of Iran’s enrichment program.”
Now, it can be argued that there is some ambiguity in the report regarding the use of the expression “not inconsistent with” instead of “consistent with,” with the former requiring further questioning and reporting particularly since much of it relate to the procurement activities of the Physics Research Center, an institution also under questioning regarding Iran’s alleged undeclared activities. Still the extent of IAEA’s acknowledgment of the plausibility of Iran’s explanations of past activities is an important breakthrough for that country.
The report also suggests that Iran has effectively and voluntarily implemented the Additional Protocol in the past few months, allowing the IAEA extensive inspections and access. But as discussed by Mohammad ElBaradei in the IAEA video, as well as in the report, this voluntarily implementation on a short terms basis is not sufficient for IAEA’s purposes of monitoring Iran’s present declared program. IAEA wants Iran to sign the Additional Protocol. Iran has said that its previous offer of signing the protocol is no longer on the table so long as Iran’s case at the UN Security Council. In short, Iran’s position is that it cannot be forced to sign an international agreement but it may consider doing so if the Western countries begin treating Iran’s nuclear program in the same way they treat other country’s nuclear programs. This position will be maintained even more steadfastly now that almost all the outstanding issues about Iran’s declared program have been resolved.
The one issue that has not been resolved involves “alleged studies” done by Iran that can be connected to weaponization ("Alleged studies" is the way they are identified by the IAEA but not surprisingly by the New York Times which talks about these studies as “evidence …that strongly suggested the country had experimented with technology to make a nuclear weapon.” For a look at the media coverage of the report see here). These studies come out of a laptop that was reportedly given to the U.S. intelligence by an Iranian “walk-in” source who stole the laptop from someone else (see earlier stories and analyses on the stolen laptop and documents here, here, and here. The most troublesome aspect of the information in the laptop was the plans for “the design for a missile re-entry vehicle, which could have a nuclear military dimension.”
In the Workplan signed in August 2007, Iran agreed to assess the documentation generated out of the laptop that alleges weaponization-related studies (not an actual experimentation with technology as NYT suggests) provided it was given the documentation. The language used in the work plan is interesting and worth mentioning:
“Iran reiterated that it considers the following alleged studies as politically motivated and baseless allegations. The Agency will however provide Iran with access to the documentation it has in its possession regarding: the Green Salt Project, the high explosive testing and the missile re-entry vehicle. As a sign of good will and cooperation with the Agency, upon receiving all related documents, Iran will review and inform the Agency of its assessment.”
The interesting thing about all this was that the Agency was not able to give Iran the documentation required for Iran to make its assessment until early February (February 3-5) and when it did so it was only partial documentation because the country in possession of the documents, namely the United States, either would not give the documents to the IAEA or would not give the IAEA permission to give the documents to Iran until then. It was only on February 15, or a mere one week before the publication of the current report, that Iran was informed that the IAEA is ready to give Iran a second batch of documents (reportedly a large amount of them dumped by the United States on the IAEA’s lap on that same day).
Iran’s response to the first batch of documents, which included subsequent clarifications to further IAEA questions, was that they were fabrications (with names of non-existent individuals and offices). Iran has yet to respond to the IAEA further requests of meeting over the second batch of documents released on February 15 for obvious shortage of time but there is reason to believe that after seeing the first batch of documents, Iran may not want to continue to play the game as its mid-February response stated explicitly that its assessment that the documents are fabricated was final (Note that in the above quoted section of the Workplan, assessment of the documents was the only thing Iran promised).
So here are a few questions to ponder at this point:
1. Why was the Bush Administration so late in dumping the documents on the IAEA? Were the documents suspect as suggested by initial reports about them? Was it because the U.S. did not want to be blamed for stifling the Workplan? And/or was it because once it became clear that the IAEA was about to announce all outstanding issues related to Iran’s past declared activities resolved, the Bush Administration felt that the late release of these documents were the only instruments it had to keep the Iran file going?
2. What is the IAEA expected to do if Iran insists that the documents are fabricated and IAEA’s own stance remains that these are “alleged weaponization studies that Iran supposedly conducted in the past,” (i.e., it cannot confirm the veracity of the documents) and IAEA has not “detected any use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies, nor does it have any credible information in this regard”? It is true that the IAEA makes an observation in paragraph 39 that the computer image made available to Iran showing "a schematic layout" of the inner cone of a re-entry vehicle, as being “assessed by the Agency as quite likely to be able to accommodate a nuclear device.” But it does not (and I assume cannot) make an assessment of whether the information itself is fabricated as Iran claims. Secondly, the Agency admits that neither the documents nor the IAEA can offer a link of these studies to any weaponization program. So for the coming year are we going to be facing a specter of a back and forth between Iran and the IAEA not over Iran’s nuclear program but over documents about alleged studies that no one (except the Iranians) seem to be sure whether they are fake or not? Isn’t this really hanging on to a pretty thin straw?
3. Will the IAEA be pressured to continue this process?
My sense is that this report will be used by both sides in ways that suits their purposes. Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, has already declared the report a vindication of Iran while the United States will again push and probably get a rather meaningless Security Council resolution that will not go much beyond the previous resolutions in terms of impact but presumably make a political point that the Security Council route is not really exhausted as the Iranian leaders, particularly Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claim.
But the reality is that most people associated with this process are exhausted and ready to move on (with the notable exception of the Bush Administration folks that are just simply exhausted). Perhaps ElBaradei’s last words in his interview gives us some hints about the exhaustion (and exasperation) the IAEA must be feeling regarding the continuation of the general political deadlock and the need to move on after years of what under other circumstances would be considered successful interaction between his Agency and a member country; interaction that has led to the resolution of significant technical issues:
“A durable solution requires confidence about Iran’s nuclear program, it requires a regional security arrangement, it requires normal trade relationship between Iran and the international community. As the Security Council stated, the ultimate aim should be normalization of relationships between Iran and the international community. Definitely the Agency will continue to do as much as we can to make sure that we also contribute to the confidence-building process with regard to the past and present nuclear activities in Iran, but naturally, we can not provide assurance about future intentions. That is inherently a diplomatic process that needs the engagement of all the parties."
I am sure some European governments and the Bush Administration will be upset and once again accuse ElBaradei for going beyond his technical mandate and talking about ways to overcome the deadlock politically and diplomatically. But in this day and age of failed policies shouldn’t calling it as is be everyone’s mandate? Read more on this article...
Monday, December 3, 2007
National Intelligence Estimate about Iran’s Nuclear Program
The NIE report that just came out regarding Iran’s nuclear program will be greeted with a sigh of relief by many who have been worried about the Bush Administration hardliners’ reported push for military action against Iran.
The report judges with high confidence that Iran currently does not have a nuclear weapons program. It further states the intelligence community's lack of knowledge about Iran’s intent to develop nuclear weapons. Also, while it judges with moderate confidence that “Iran would be technically capable of producing enough HEU [highly enriched uranium] sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame," it goes on to say "all agencies recognize the possibility that this capability many not be attained until after 2015.” Finally the report judges with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium (I assume via its planned heavy water plant in Arak) for a weapon before about 2015.
So the report should undercut (or at least dent) any legitimacy the idea of military action has had in the United States. As such, the report should be seen as part and parcel of the debate that has been going on the in the United States between promoters of coercive diplomacy and military action. And, lo and behold, it can be easily interpreted as coming down on the side of the current policy of the Bush Administration, which is coercive “diplomacy”!
It judges with “high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons” and goes on to say, “Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.”
In fact, the text issued today by the national security adviser Stephen Hadley, ends with the statement that the report “suggests the President has the right strategy, intensified international pressure along with the willingness to negotiate… The bottom line is this: for that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran – with diplomatic isolation, United Nations Sanctions, and with other financial pressure.”
This propitious convergence between the NIE and the Bush Administration’s current policy and the timing of the release of this report, which was according to a piece by Gareth Porter published on November 8 was finished a year ago, can be viewed from a couple of angles. From one angle, as mentioned above, there is the obvious rejection of Dick Cheney's militarily aggressive policy toward Iran.
This may well be the correct angle but, from my point of view, the timing of the public revelation about the support given by the report to Bush’s current policy of sanctions, exactly at a time when some people have been questioning the futility of continuing that policy and have called for direct and unconditional talks with Iran seems, to say the least, questionable.
For the past couple of years I have come to believe that at least some of the talk about military action against Iran has been about limiting the public dialogue about Iran in the United States. By raising the specter of military action, the Bush Administration has been rather successful, at least until recently, in limiting the debate about Iran to two options: coercive “diplomacy” (sanctions) or military action.
What these two options have in common is a determination not to engage with Iran directly without preconditions (i.e. without Iran’s suspension its enrichment program before talks begin). Iran’s recent cooperation with the IAEA and its continued lack of response to the sanctions regime (in its variety of forms) has been pushing a number of people to think in terms of the need for direct talks.
In short, the fact that this NIE can so easily become an instrument in support of the Bush Administration’s current policy raises a few questions for me, including:
• What explains the timing of the release of the report?
• On what basis the report is so confident that “Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons”?
• On what basis the report judges that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapons program?
• Given the report’s position that the halting of Iran’s nuclear weapons program came in 2003 as a result of international pressure, but also under a reformist government, what explains the continued confidence in the halting of the program in 2007 under a government controlled by hardliners?
• Considering that the report’s focus is on the asserted impact of pressure on Iran in halting Iran’s weapons program, how does this relate to the issue at hand which is the use of pressure to halt Iran’s declared non-weapons program; a program that Iran, under reformist and hard-line governments, has refused to abandon despite extensive international pressure?
Let me end by saying that the report does contain a couple of important paragraphs that can be used by supporters of direct and unconditional talks with Iran. It states:
"Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressures indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs. This, in turn, suggest that some combination of threats of intensified international security and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might – if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible – prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program… We assess with moderate confidence that convincing the Iranian leadership to forgo the eventual development of nuclear weapons will be difficult… In our judgment, only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons."
It is noteworthy that the policy recommendations stated here focus on Iran’s weapons program and not the declared program under supervision via NPT’s safeguards agreement. This can be taken as an implied attempted shift away from halting Iran’s nuclear program to the country’s weapons program (through verification and intrusive inspections).
The reference to Iran’s cost-benefit approach as well as the requirement of taking into account Iran’s concerns regarding “security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways” can also be seen as an acknowledgment of Iran’s legitimate concerns and objectives in the region that can only be addressed in direct and unconditional talks.
Finally, the same can be said about the statement that Iran’s nuclear weapons can only be permanently halted politically. It can be argued that only direct and unconditional talks will be “perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible” and will prompt Iran to take that political decision.
But it seems highly unlikely that the Bush Administration will read the NIE in that way. Coercive “diplomacy” will continue to be the name of the game, particularly now that China has reportedly shown signs of agreeing with the next set of sanctions. Read more on this article...
The report judges with high confidence that Iran currently does not have a nuclear weapons program. It further states the intelligence community's lack of knowledge about Iran’s intent to develop nuclear weapons. Also, while it judges with moderate confidence that “Iran would be technically capable of producing enough HEU [highly enriched uranium] sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame," it goes on to say "all agencies recognize the possibility that this capability many not be attained until after 2015.” Finally the report judges with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium (I assume via its planned heavy water plant in Arak) for a weapon before about 2015.
So the report should undercut (or at least dent) any legitimacy the idea of military action has had in the United States. As such, the report should be seen as part and parcel of the debate that has been going on the in the United States between promoters of coercive diplomacy and military action. And, lo and behold, it can be easily interpreted as coming down on the side of the current policy of the Bush Administration, which is coercive “diplomacy”!
It judges with “high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons” and goes on to say, “Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.”
In fact, the text issued today by the national security adviser Stephen Hadley, ends with the statement that the report “suggests the President has the right strategy, intensified international pressure along with the willingness to negotiate… The bottom line is this: for that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran – with diplomatic isolation, United Nations Sanctions, and with other financial pressure.”
This propitious convergence between the NIE and the Bush Administration’s current policy and the timing of the release of this report, which was according to a piece by Gareth Porter published on November 8 was finished a year ago, can be viewed from a couple of angles. From one angle, as mentioned above, there is the obvious rejection of Dick Cheney's militarily aggressive policy toward Iran.
This may well be the correct angle but, from my point of view, the timing of the public revelation about the support given by the report to Bush’s current policy of sanctions, exactly at a time when some people have been questioning the futility of continuing that policy and have called for direct and unconditional talks with Iran seems, to say the least, questionable.
For the past couple of years I have come to believe that at least some of the talk about military action against Iran has been about limiting the public dialogue about Iran in the United States. By raising the specter of military action, the Bush Administration has been rather successful, at least until recently, in limiting the debate about Iran to two options: coercive “diplomacy” (sanctions) or military action.
What these two options have in common is a determination not to engage with Iran directly without preconditions (i.e. without Iran’s suspension its enrichment program before talks begin). Iran’s recent cooperation with the IAEA and its continued lack of response to the sanctions regime (in its variety of forms) has been pushing a number of people to think in terms of the need for direct talks.
In short, the fact that this NIE can so easily become an instrument in support of the Bush Administration’s current policy raises a few questions for me, including:
• What explains the timing of the release of the report?
• On what basis the report is so confident that “Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons”?
• On what basis the report judges that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapons program?
• Given the report’s position that the halting of Iran’s nuclear weapons program came in 2003 as a result of international pressure, but also under a reformist government, what explains the continued confidence in the halting of the program in 2007 under a government controlled by hardliners?
• Considering that the report’s focus is on the asserted impact of pressure on Iran in halting Iran’s weapons program, how does this relate to the issue at hand which is the use of pressure to halt Iran’s declared non-weapons program; a program that Iran, under reformist and hard-line governments, has refused to abandon despite extensive international pressure?
Let me end by saying that the report does contain a couple of important paragraphs that can be used by supporters of direct and unconditional talks with Iran. It states:
"Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressures indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs. This, in turn, suggest that some combination of threats of intensified international security and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might – if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible – prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program… We assess with moderate confidence that convincing the Iranian leadership to forgo the eventual development of nuclear weapons will be difficult… In our judgment, only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons."
It is noteworthy that the policy recommendations stated here focus on Iran’s weapons program and not the declared program under supervision via NPT’s safeguards agreement. This can be taken as an implied attempted shift away from halting Iran’s nuclear program to the country’s weapons program (through verification and intrusive inspections).
The reference to Iran’s cost-benefit approach as well as the requirement of taking into account Iran’s concerns regarding “security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways” can also be seen as an acknowledgment of Iran’s legitimate concerns and objectives in the region that can only be addressed in direct and unconditional talks.
Finally, the same can be said about the statement that Iran’s nuclear weapons can only be permanently halted politically. It can be argued that only direct and unconditional talks will be “perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible” and will prompt Iran to take that political decision.
But it seems highly unlikely that the Bush Administration will read the NIE in that way. Coercive “diplomacy” will continue to be the name of the game, particularly now that China has reportedly shown signs of agreeing with the next set of sanctions. Read more on this article...
Friday, November 16, 2007
Politics of Reporting on IAEA Reports
It is always interesting to read the actual text of reports issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding Iran not only because of what they reveal about Iran’s program, but also because of the interestingly partial way various news organizations and governments end up interpreting or representing the report to audiences they are sure will not read the reports themselves.
The IAEA report that just came out regarding Iran was much anticipated because of the agreement on a work plan between the IAEA and Iran regarding a time frame for the resolution of “outstanding issues” that had remained regarding Iran’s past activities. Based on this agreement Iran was expected to cooperate and effectively divulge information that would allow the IAEA to assess whether or not Iran has come clean on its past activities. This process is still ongoing but the November report was expected to give a hint about the extent of Iranian cooperation.
The IAEA and its director Mohammad ElBaradei were heavily criticized by the United States and several European governments for the work plan because of its focus on Iran’s past activities or breaches and the possibility of the resolution of the questions regarding these past activities undercutting the force of the UN sanctions regime that demands suspension of Iran’s enrichment program. As such, the report issued on November 15 had to be, and is, very clear that “contrary to the decisions of the Security Council, Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities.”
The IAEA report also states that “since early 2006 [this is when Iran suspended its voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol due to UN Security Council initiated sanctions against Iran], the Agency has not received the type of information that Iran had previously been providing, pursuant the Additional Protocol and as a transparency measure. As result, the Agency’s knowledge about Iran’s current programme is diminishing.”
On the remaining major issues relevant to the scope and nature of Iran’s nuclear program, however, the report paints a cooperative picture of Iran and states: “The Agency has been able to conclude that answers provided on the declared past P-1 and P-2 centrifuge programmes are consistent with its findings. The Agency will, however, continue to seek corroboration and is continuing to verify the completeness of Iran’s declarations.” This is not a statement of closure of the issue as the Iranian leaders are claiming but is an important steep forward. In fact, the language of Iran providing information that is “consistent with the Agency’s findings” or “information available to the Agency” from other sources is repeated several times in the report regarding a variety of issues.
Also positively reported is Iran’s level of cooperation. The report explicitly states that “Iran has provided sufficient access to individuals and has responded in a timely manner to questions and provided clarifications and amplifications on issues raised in the context of the work plan. However its cooperation has been reactive rather than proactive.” This I take to mean that Iran has responded to questions and cooperated in specific areas when asked but not before. The IAEA clearly wants Iran to engage in “active cooperation and full transparency” in a proactive manner but the report does not state that Iran’s reactive approach has led to lack of cooperation as agreed upon in the work plan.
Finally, the IAEA is also quite explicit that “the Agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has provided the Agency with access to declared nuclear material, and has provided the required nuclear accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and activities.” But, as mentioned above, the Agency wants Iran to implement the Additional Protocol to prevent its “diminishing” knowledge of Iran’s current program (this is by the way something Iran has said, at least in the past, that it will do if Iran’s nuclear dossier returns to the IAEA).
So a close reading of the report suggests that the IAEA is unhappy with Iran’s continuation of enrichment (because it is contrary to the Security Council decisions) and would like Iran to voluntarily implement the Additional Protocol as it did in the past. At the same time, the report suggests good progress on the issue of Iran’s past activities. It also reveals no evidence of diversion to a weapons program despite “a total of seven unannounced inspections” carried out which are beyond Iran’s current NPT obligations (as I understand it, IAEA inspectors have been issued multiple entry visas to enter Iran as they wish).
I lay the report out in detail because I think it is important as a backdrop to the hesitance shown by Russia and China in approving another set of sanctions against Iran before IAEA’s engagement with Iran through the work plan is finished.
But as I said above it is also interesting and quite revealing to see how the report itself is reported. In Iran, the statements about non-diversion and consistency with the Agency’s findings are trumpeted by government officials as an affirmation of Iran’s righteousness. The United States government, on the other hand, has found the report inadequate and in fact has immediately called for a Security Council meeting to discuss a new round of sanctions (a meeting China reportedly initially refused to attend but has now reluctantly agreed to do so after Thanksgiving)
These are expected governmental positions. Perhaps also not too unexpectedly, the American newspapers and news agencies also do seem a bit too willing to tow the U.S. government line. The New York Times, in a piece entitled “Report Raises New Doubts on Iran’s Nuclear Program,” reports that the Agency “said in a report on Thursday that Iran had made new but incomplete disclosures about its past nuclear activities, missing a critical deadline under an agreement with the agency and virtually assuring a new push by the United States to impose stricter international sanctions.” No where in text of this piece, however, there is anything about what these “new doubts” are or where exactly the report has said that a critical deadline has been passed. Also not referred to are the explicit statements about non-diversion of nuclear material and consistency with the Agency’s findings.
The piece goes on to say, “the report made clear that even while providing some answers, Iran has continued to shield many aspects of its nuclear program.” The report says no such thing but the NYT piece takes the report’s reference to Iran’s “reactive rather than proactive” cooperation, mentioned in the paragraph about Iran’s “sufficient” and “timely” cooperation with the work plan, along with the suspension of the Additional Protocol (calling it instead “restrictions Iran has placed on inspectors”) as the reasons for why the “agency’s understanding of the full scope of Iran’s nuclear program is diminishing” and represents this as a "shielding" by Iran.
The Associated Press’ heading is “IAEA: Iran Not Open About Nuke Program,” while the opening of the piece is: “The U.S. called for new sanctions against Iran after a U.N. report Thursday that said the Tehran regime has been generally truthful about key aspects of its past nuclear activities, but is continuing to enrich uranium.”
After several changes in the Internet versions, the Washington Post’s heading ended up slightly less provocative (“U.S. to Seek New Sanctions against Iran: UN Report Faults Tehran’s Input on Nuclear Program”). But the text begins by saying “The Bush administration plans to push for new sanctions against Iran after the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency reported yesterday that Tehran is providing "diminishing" information about its controversial nuclear program, U.S. officials said. In a critically timed assessment, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran provided "timely" and helpful new information on a secret program that became public in 2002, but that it did not fully answer questions or allow full access to Iranian personnel. Iran is even less cooperative on its current program, the IAEA reported.” This reporting is not only flatly wrong regarding what the report said about full access to Iranian personnel but also completely mum, like the reporting from AP and NYT, about the reasons for the “diminishing” information (the suspension of the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol which was instigated by the Security Council action).
If you are wondering if there is reporting that accurately uses the language used by the IAEA findings, I think the BBC piece entitled “Mixed UN Nuclear Report for Iran,” although short and still mum on the reasons for why the Additional Protocol is no longer voluntarily implemented by Iran, gives a relatively accurate description of the issues involved. So it can be done! Why it is not, make a guess…. Read more on this article...
The IAEA report that just came out regarding Iran was much anticipated because of the agreement on a work plan between the IAEA and Iran regarding a time frame for the resolution of “outstanding issues” that had remained regarding Iran’s past activities. Based on this agreement Iran was expected to cooperate and effectively divulge information that would allow the IAEA to assess whether or not Iran has come clean on its past activities. This process is still ongoing but the November report was expected to give a hint about the extent of Iranian cooperation.
The IAEA and its director Mohammad ElBaradei were heavily criticized by the United States and several European governments for the work plan because of its focus on Iran’s past activities or breaches and the possibility of the resolution of the questions regarding these past activities undercutting the force of the UN sanctions regime that demands suspension of Iran’s enrichment program. As such, the report issued on November 15 had to be, and is, very clear that “contrary to the decisions of the Security Council, Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities.”
The IAEA report also states that “since early 2006 [this is when Iran suspended its voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol due to UN Security Council initiated sanctions against Iran], the Agency has not received the type of information that Iran had previously been providing, pursuant the Additional Protocol and as a transparency measure. As result, the Agency’s knowledge about Iran’s current programme is diminishing.”
On the remaining major issues relevant to the scope and nature of Iran’s nuclear program, however, the report paints a cooperative picture of Iran and states: “The Agency has been able to conclude that answers provided on the declared past P-1 and P-2 centrifuge programmes are consistent with its findings. The Agency will, however, continue to seek corroboration and is continuing to verify the completeness of Iran’s declarations.” This is not a statement of closure of the issue as the Iranian leaders are claiming but is an important steep forward. In fact, the language of Iran providing information that is “consistent with the Agency’s findings” or “information available to the Agency” from other sources is repeated several times in the report regarding a variety of issues.
Also positively reported is Iran’s level of cooperation. The report explicitly states that “Iran has provided sufficient access to individuals and has responded in a timely manner to questions and provided clarifications and amplifications on issues raised in the context of the work plan. However its cooperation has been reactive rather than proactive.” This I take to mean that Iran has responded to questions and cooperated in specific areas when asked but not before. The IAEA clearly wants Iran to engage in “active cooperation and full transparency” in a proactive manner but the report does not state that Iran’s reactive approach has led to lack of cooperation as agreed upon in the work plan.
Finally, the IAEA is also quite explicit that “the Agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has provided the Agency with access to declared nuclear material, and has provided the required nuclear accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and activities.” But, as mentioned above, the Agency wants Iran to implement the Additional Protocol to prevent its “diminishing” knowledge of Iran’s current program (this is by the way something Iran has said, at least in the past, that it will do if Iran’s nuclear dossier returns to the IAEA).
So a close reading of the report suggests that the IAEA is unhappy with Iran’s continuation of enrichment (because it is contrary to the Security Council decisions) and would like Iran to voluntarily implement the Additional Protocol as it did in the past. At the same time, the report suggests good progress on the issue of Iran’s past activities. It also reveals no evidence of diversion to a weapons program despite “a total of seven unannounced inspections” carried out which are beyond Iran’s current NPT obligations (as I understand it, IAEA inspectors have been issued multiple entry visas to enter Iran as they wish).
I lay the report out in detail because I think it is important as a backdrop to the hesitance shown by Russia and China in approving another set of sanctions against Iran before IAEA’s engagement with Iran through the work plan is finished.
But as I said above it is also interesting and quite revealing to see how the report itself is reported. In Iran, the statements about non-diversion and consistency with the Agency’s findings are trumpeted by government officials as an affirmation of Iran’s righteousness. The United States government, on the other hand, has found the report inadequate and in fact has immediately called for a Security Council meeting to discuss a new round of sanctions (a meeting China reportedly initially refused to attend but has now reluctantly agreed to do so after Thanksgiving)
These are expected governmental positions. Perhaps also not too unexpectedly, the American newspapers and news agencies also do seem a bit too willing to tow the U.S. government line. The New York Times, in a piece entitled “Report Raises New Doubts on Iran’s Nuclear Program,” reports that the Agency “said in a report on Thursday that Iran had made new but incomplete disclosures about its past nuclear activities, missing a critical deadline under an agreement with the agency and virtually assuring a new push by the United States to impose stricter international sanctions.” No where in text of this piece, however, there is anything about what these “new doubts” are or where exactly the report has said that a critical deadline has been passed. Also not referred to are the explicit statements about non-diversion of nuclear material and consistency with the Agency’s findings.
The piece goes on to say, “the report made clear that even while providing some answers, Iran has continued to shield many aspects of its nuclear program.” The report says no such thing but the NYT piece takes the report’s reference to Iran’s “reactive rather than proactive” cooperation, mentioned in the paragraph about Iran’s “sufficient” and “timely” cooperation with the work plan, along with the suspension of the Additional Protocol (calling it instead “restrictions Iran has placed on inspectors”) as the reasons for why the “agency’s understanding of the full scope of Iran’s nuclear program is diminishing” and represents this as a "shielding" by Iran.
The Associated Press’ heading is “IAEA: Iran Not Open About Nuke Program,” while the opening of the piece is: “The U.S. called for new sanctions against Iran after a U.N. report Thursday that said the Tehran regime has been generally truthful about key aspects of its past nuclear activities, but is continuing to enrich uranium.”
After several changes in the Internet versions, the Washington Post’s heading ended up slightly less provocative (“U.S. to Seek New Sanctions against Iran: UN Report Faults Tehran’s Input on Nuclear Program”). But the text begins by saying “The Bush administration plans to push for new sanctions against Iran after the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency reported yesterday that Tehran is providing "diminishing" information about its controversial nuclear program, U.S. officials said. In a critically timed assessment, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran provided "timely" and helpful new information on a secret program that became public in 2002, but that it did not fully answer questions or allow full access to Iranian personnel. Iran is even less cooperative on its current program, the IAEA reported.” This reporting is not only flatly wrong regarding what the report said about full access to Iranian personnel but also completely mum, like the reporting from AP and NYT, about the reasons for the “diminishing” information (the suspension of the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol which was instigated by the Security Council action).
If you are wondering if there is reporting that accurately uses the language used by the IAEA findings, I think the BBC piece entitled “Mixed UN Nuclear Report for Iran,” although short and still mum on the reasons for why the Additional Protocol is no longer voluntarily implemented by Iran, gives a relatively accurate description of the issues involved. So it can be done! Why it is not, make a guess…. Read more on this article...
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
The IAEA Board of Governors Meet to Talk about Iran Again
The 35-member IAEA Board of Governors are meeting in Vienna this week and the agenda in all likelihood will be dominated by Iran again. Mohammad ElBaradei, the Agency’s Director General, is asking the Board, despite American objections, to give the IAEA time to implement the work plan the Agency has negotiated with Iran. ElBaradei’s hope is for the Security Council to take a "timeout'' from sanctions and for Iran to pause its uranium enrichment to avert a crisis over the country's nuclear program.
But Iran has already stated that it will not accept a suspension under any conditions and will halt its newly agreed upon cooperative work plan with the Agency if new sanctions are pursued at the Security Council. Hence, the Board, but more significantly the P5+1 (Permanent Security Council members plus Germany) which have been pursuing Security Council sanctions in order to pressure Iran to halt its enrichment program, is faced with the difficult choice of deciding whether to give the IAEA more room to maneuver regarding the inspection of Iran’s nuclear program. This means a suspension of the attempt to tighten the sanctions noose without a concomitant and publicly announced suspension of uranium enrichment by Tehran. There have been suggestions that Iran has effectively and perhaps intentionally slowed its program (a suggestion that was immediately denied by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but not Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani). But I am pretty sure that the chances of an official suspension is almost nil.
I am pasting below the Iran relevant parts of the Director General’s statement to the Board, acknowledging the Agency's ability "to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material," resolution of a number of outstanding issues along with the Iran’s continued defiance of Security Council demand to suspend enrichment and the Agency’s inability to verify certain important aspects relevant to the scope and nature of Iran’s nuclear program. It is in the hope of verifying these aspects that the work plan was negotiated with Iran.
Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran
The report before you provides an update on the implementation of Agency safeguards in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The report makes four main points.
First, the Agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has continued to provide the access and reporting needed to enable Agency verification in this regard.
Second, Iran has provided the Agency with additional information and access needed to resolve a number of long outstanding issues. In particular, Agency questions regarding past plutonium experiments in Iran have been satisfactorily answered, and this issue has been resolved. Questions about the presence and origin of high enriched uranium particles at the Karaj Waste Storage Facility have also been resolved.
Third, contrary to the decisions of the Security Council, calling on Iran to take certain confidence building measures, Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities, and is continuing with the construction and operation of the Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz. Iran is also continuing with its construction of the heavy water reactor at Arak. This is regrettable.
Fourth, despite repeated requests by the Board and the Security Council to Iran, the Agency has so far been unable to verify certain important aspects relevant to the scope and nature of Iran´s nuclear programme. It was this situation that triggered a crisis of confidence about the nature of Iran´s nuclear programme, which led to a series of actions by the UN Security Council. However, during a meeting I had with the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, Dr. Larijani, it was agreed that Iran would work with the Agency to develop a work plan for resolving all outstanding verification issues. A copy of the resulting work plan between Iran and the Secretariat is attached to my report.
This is the first time that Iran has agreed on a plan to address all outstanding issues, with a defined timeline, and is therefore an important step in the right direction. Naturally, the key to gauging Iran´s commitment will be its willingness to implement this work plan fully and in a timely manner. This would require active cooperation by Iran and its undertaking of all the transparency measures needed to reconstruct the history of its nuclear programme - measures that are provided for in the additional protocol and beyond, and which include access to locations, documents and individuals, as well as answers to all questions the Agency may need to ask in order to reach a technical conclusion on a particular issue. Resolving all outstanding verification issues in the next two to three months, after a long deadlock, would go a long way towards building the confidence of the international community in the peaceful nature of Iran´s past nuclear programme.
But equally important, Iran obviously needs to continue to build confidence in the scope and nature of its current nuclear programme, including renewed access by the Agency to information relevant to ongoing advanced centrifuge research. To that end, and given the special history of Iran´s nuclear programme, it would be indispensable for Iran to ratify and bring into force its additional protocol, as called for by the Security Council and the Board. This would enable the Agency to provide assurances not only regarding declared nuclear material but, equally important, regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran.
Finally, I continue to hope that conditions will be created soon to make it possible for the resumption of negotiations between Iran and all relevant parties. I still believe it is only through negotiations that a durable solution could be achieved - a solution that provides the international community with the required level of assurance and enables Iran to exercise its rights under the NPT. To this end I repeat that a "double time-out" of all enrichment related activities and of sanctions could provide a breathing space for negotiations to be resumed. The earlier we move from confrontation and distrust to dialogue and confidence building, the better for Iran and for the international community.
Read more on this article...
But Iran has already stated that it will not accept a suspension under any conditions and will halt its newly agreed upon cooperative work plan with the Agency if new sanctions are pursued at the Security Council. Hence, the Board, but more significantly the P5+1 (Permanent Security Council members plus Germany) which have been pursuing Security Council sanctions in order to pressure Iran to halt its enrichment program, is faced with the difficult choice of deciding whether to give the IAEA more room to maneuver regarding the inspection of Iran’s nuclear program. This means a suspension of the attempt to tighten the sanctions noose without a concomitant and publicly announced suspension of uranium enrichment by Tehran. There have been suggestions that Iran has effectively and perhaps intentionally slowed its program (a suggestion that was immediately denied by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but not Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani). But I am pretty sure that the chances of an official suspension is almost nil.
I am pasting below the Iran relevant parts of the Director General’s statement to the Board, acknowledging the Agency's ability "to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material," resolution of a number of outstanding issues along with the Iran’s continued defiance of Security Council demand to suspend enrichment and the Agency’s inability to verify certain important aspects relevant to the scope and nature of Iran’s nuclear program. It is in the hope of verifying these aspects that the work plan was negotiated with Iran.
Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran
The report before you provides an update on the implementation of Agency safeguards in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The report makes four main points.
First, the Agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has continued to provide the access and reporting needed to enable Agency verification in this regard.
Second, Iran has provided the Agency with additional information and access needed to resolve a number of long outstanding issues. In particular, Agency questions regarding past plutonium experiments in Iran have been satisfactorily answered, and this issue has been resolved. Questions about the presence and origin of high enriched uranium particles at the Karaj Waste Storage Facility have also been resolved.
Third, contrary to the decisions of the Security Council, calling on Iran to take certain confidence building measures, Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities, and is continuing with the construction and operation of the Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz. Iran is also continuing with its construction of the heavy water reactor at Arak. This is regrettable.
Fourth, despite repeated requests by the Board and the Security Council to Iran, the Agency has so far been unable to verify certain important aspects relevant to the scope and nature of Iran´s nuclear programme. It was this situation that triggered a crisis of confidence about the nature of Iran´s nuclear programme, which led to a series of actions by the UN Security Council. However, during a meeting I had with the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, Dr. Larijani, it was agreed that Iran would work with the Agency to develop a work plan for resolving all outstanding verification issues. A copy of the resulting work plan between Iran and the Secretariat is attached to my report.
This is the first time that Iran has agreed on a plan to address all outstanding issues, with a defined timeline, and is therefore an important step in the right direction. Naturally, the key to gauging Iran´s commitment will be its willingness to implement this work plan fully and in a timely manner. This would require active cooperation by Iran and its undertaking of all the transparency measures needed to reconstruct the history of its nuclear programme - measures that are provided for in the additional protocol and beyond, and which include access to locations, documents and individuals, as well as answers to all questions the Agency may need to ask in order to reach a technical conclusion on a particular issue. Resolving all outstanding verification issues in the next two to three months, after a long deadlock, would go a long way towards building the confidence of the international community in the peaceful nature of Iran´s past nuclear programme.
But equally important, Iran obviously needs to continue to build confidence in the scope and nature of its current nuclear programme, including renewed access by the Agency to information relevant to ongoing advanced centrifuge research. To that end, and given the special history of Iran´s nuclear programme, it would be indispensable for Iran to ratify and bring into force its additional protocol, as called for by the Security Council and the Board. This would enable the Agency to provide assurances not only regarding declared nuclear material but, equally important, regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran.
Finally, I continue to hope that conditions will be created soon to make it possible for the resumption of negotiations between Iran and all relevant parties. I still believe it is only through negotiations that a durable solution could be achieved - a solution that provides the international community with the required level of assurance and enables Iran to exercise its rights under the NPT. To this end I repeat that a "double time-out" of all enrichment related activities and of sanctions could provide a breathing space for negotiations to be resumed. The earlier we move from confrontation and distrust to dialogue and confidence building, the better for Iran and for the international community.
Read more on this article...
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