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Iran Signs Additional Protocol
Iran signed the Additional Protocol to its nuclear safeguards agreement today, taking a formal step toward allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor Tehran’s nuclear activities more intrusively (see GSN, Dec. 17). Ali Akbar Salehi, the outgoing Iranian representative to the IAEA, signed on behalf of Iran, and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei signed for the U.N. agency (Reuters, Dec. 18). Although Iran publicly agreed to adopt the protocol in October, the two-month delay in actually signing the agreement generated extensive Western criticism. The protocol must still pass through the Iranian Parliament and the Guardian Council, a 12-member body that ensures that new laws and treaties adhere to Islamic law. Tehran, however, has agreed to abide by the terms of the protocol even before the document goes through its domestic ratification process, the New York Times reported today. Russia, which is helping Iran build a nuclear reactor in Bushehr, had refused to deliver nuclear fuel to Iran until the protocol was signed, according to the Times (Nazila Fathi, New York Times, Dec. 18). The United States called on Iran to take more steps toward nuclear transparency. “The signature is only one step toward resolving the remaining open questions about Iran’s nuclear program and toward increasing international confidence that (it) will be limited to peaceful activities,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, Dec. 18).
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