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Newest IAEA report on Iran cites continued concerns in
anticipation of full UNSC consideration
Steven C. Welsh, CDI Research Analyst,
swelsh@cdi.org
March 3, 2006
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[click
here for “IAEA formally refers Iranian matter to UN Security Council,” Feb. 27,
2006]
[click here for “IAEA on Iran: recent and pending action and legal parameters,”
Feb. 2, 2006]
With UN Security Council (UNSC)
referral already underway, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei on Feb. 27, 2006, circulated to the IAEA
Board of Governors the latest IAEA report on the Iranian nuclear program, in
anticipation of the board’s upcoming meeting beginning March 6, 2006.
(The report is officially restricted unless and until the board votes to make it
public. Nevertheless, portions are set out in news reports, and the entire
report may be downloaded from
http://www.iranwatch.org/international/IAEA/
iaea-iranreport-022706.pdf.
Update March 8, 2006: copy
released to public now available on IAEA web site:
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/
2006/gov2006-15.pdf)
Egyptian lawyer ElBaradei’s language is cautious, but nevertheless voices
continued concern and unanswered questions. The report cited
Iran’s recent decision to resume nuclear fuel cycle
activities, the violation of the 2004 Paris Agreement with Europe that brought
Europe to temporarily drop diplomatic efforts and back UNSC
referral. With respect to other issues, the IAEA report’s bottom line
assessment appears to be that there has been partial cooperation sufficient to
account for all previously discovered nuclear materials; the IAEA is not able to
conclude the Iranian program is entirely peaceful and therefore licit; with
respect to specific items under review there still are unanswered questions
either because of a lack of full and active cooperation or because assessments
and investigation are simply still ongoing; and the legal and corresponding
investigative frameworks need to be strengthened.
Some of the report’s major points include:
-
With respect to that body of known nuclear materials
Iran previously has declared or been
forced to declare, all have been accounted for.
-
The IAEA is unable to conclude there are no undeclared nuclear
materials or activities in
Iran.
-
Iran possesses a
“generic document” related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon
components, which Iran
has agreed to keep under IAEA seal, and has opened to on-site
examination; Iran
refuses to provide a copy, and denies it requested it from foreign
sources.
-
There is lack of clarification about the role of the military in Iran’s
nuclear program, including with respect to recently obtained information
received by the agency concerning alleged weapon studies that could
involve nuclear material.
-
The IAEA believes it lacks legal authority to undertake the full scope
of activities necessary to resolve the Iranian matter and ensure that
ongoing questions will not continue being raised.
-
Even if Iran
complies with its safeguards agreement as well as the unratified
Additional Protocol that level of investigative intensity would not go
far enough .
-
Ongoing IAEA assessments will be delayed by Iran’s lack of full
cooperation, such as evidenced by Iran’s Feb. 6, 2006, decision to stop
following the signed but unratified Additional Protocol (recall that the
Additional Protocol is the latest generation of safeguards and provides
moderately more intrusive and expansive inspections but does not go as
far as what the IAEA board requires of Iran in its Feb. 4, 2006, board
resolution reporting Iran to the UNSC).
-
There is an inadequacy of information available on
Iran’s centrifuge enrichment program.
-
There still is not a full explanation for the presence of highly
enriched uranium on some of the Iranian equipment.
-
Without active cooperation by Iran
the matter cannot be resolved, implying that with its current level of
authority the IAEA is not able to accomplish that goal on its own if
Iran wished to thwart efforts to
investigate it.
The report states:
| 53. … Although the Agency has not seen any diversion of nuclear
material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, the
Agency is not at this point in time in a position to conclude that
there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in
Iran. The process of drawing such a
conclusion, under normal circumstances, is a time consuming process
even with an Additional Protocol in force. In the case of Iran, this
conclusion can be expected to take even longer in light of the
undeclared nature of Iran’s past nuclear programme, and in
particular because of the inadequacy of information available on its
centrifuge enrichment programme, the existence of a generic document
related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components, and the
lack of clarification about the role of the military in Iran’s
nuclear programme, including, as mentioned above, about recent
information available to the Agency concerning alleged weapon
studies that could involve nuclear material. |
“Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of
Iran: Report by the Director General,” International Atomic Energy Agency,
GOV/2006/15, Feb. 27, 2006,
http://www.iranwatch.org/international/IAEA/iaea-iranreport-022706.pdf
The report further states:
| 54. It is regrettable, and a matter of concern, that the above
uncertainties related to the scope and nature of Iran’s nuclear
programme have not been clarified after three years of intensive
Agency verification. …
Iran’s full transparency is still
essential. Without full transparency that extends beyond the formal
legal requirements of the Safeguards Agreement and Additional
Protocol — transparency that could only be achieved through Iran’s
active cooperation — the Agency’s ability to reconstruct the history
of Iran’s past programme and to verify the correctness and
completeness of the statements made by Iran, particularly with
regard to its centrifuge enrichment programme, will be limited, and
questions about the past and current direction of Iran’s nuclear
programme will continue to be raised. Such transparency should
primarily include access to, and cooperation by, relevant
individuals; access to documentation related to procurement and dual
use equipment; and access to certain military owned workshops and
R&D locations that the Agency may need to visit in the future as
part of its investigation. |
Evidence of enriched uranium on centrifuges
The IAEA previously detected contamination from both low-enriched uranium (LEU)
and highly enriched uranium (HEU) on Iranian centrifuge equipment.
Iran argued the contamination occurred outside
Iran before
Iran obtained the equipment. The IAEA believes
that the some evidence supports
Iran’s claim with respect to some of the HEU
particles but that the matter is still not fully resolved:
| … the origin of some HEU particles, and of the LEU particles,
remains to be further investigated … Due to the fact that it is
difficult to establish a definitive conclusion with respect to the
origin of all of the contamination, it is essential to make progress
on the scope and chronology of Iran’s experiments with UF6
in its centrifuge enrichment programme. |
Need to strengthen nonproliferation regime
With respect to the overall investigation, part of the crux of the situation is
that IAEA safeguards traditionally were aimed at essentially auditing known
activities and materials, to account for their whereabouts, uses, and
disposition. The Additional Protocol was aimed to provide moderately more
proactive inspections but still does not provide open-ended authority of the
kind the IAEA board has determined is needed to resolve the Iranian matter.
The UNSC, in contrast, has broad authority to engage any situation impacting
international peace and security, to investigate and to require appropriate
solutions. Under the text of the UN Charter, the UNSC hypothetically could
require any kind of inspections. One interesting legal question would be how
easily the UNSC could require Iran
to give up nuclear energy, but clearly that proposal is not presently on the
table, even though there appears to be international consensus that
Iran should not have an indigenous nuclear fuel
cycle. Note that negotiations between Iran and Russia on a joint enrichment
project in Russia have generated a sense of partial cooperation analogous to the
IAEA investigations, with Iran at times speaking favorable of the Russian
proposal, but nevertheless refusing to foreclose the possible of also
having purely Iranian enrichment projects located purely within Iran.
In any event, for the IAEA the next stage could be for the UNSC to strengthen
the IAEA’s legal and investigative framework, in the process seeking to
demonstrate the capacity of the UN system, working in synergy with other
multilateral efforts, to “nip in the bud” any security and other challenges the
Iranian matter poses.
Sources and further reading:
“Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran:
Report by the Director General,” International Atomic Energy Agency,
GOV/2006/15, Feb. 27, 2006,
http://www.iranwatch.org/international/IAEA/iaea-iranreport-022706.pdf
“FACTBOX-Key points of UN atomic watchdog report on
Iran,” Reuters, Feb. 28, 2006,
http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type
=topNews&storyID=2006-02-28T181019Z_01_L28589764_
RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml &related=true
George Nishiyama, “Iran:
Russia link counters mistrust raised by UN
report,” Reuters, Feb. 28, 2006,
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=
2006-02-28T185724Z_01_L28111746_
RTRUKOC_0_US-NUCLEAR-IRAN.xml
“Tehran fails to
dispel IAEA 'concern',” Financial Times, Feb. 28, 2006
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/426d2364-a7fe-11da-85bc-0000779e2340.html
“IAEA Safeguards Overview: Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements and Additional
Protocols,” International Atomic Energy Agency,
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Factsheets/English/sg_overview.html.
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