Iranian Nuclear Transparency Promising, Incomplete, IAEA Says

The top U.N. nuclear official delivered a mixed message yesterday on Iran’s nuclear program by praising Iranian officials for disclosing more information about the nation’s past nuclear activities while criticizing them for incomplete cooperation (see GSN, Nov. 15).

International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei described progress on a “work plan” he established with Iran in August to once and for all disclose the nation’s past efforts to acquire nuclear technology.  ElBaradei’s findings were distributed yesterday in a report to members of the agency’s governing board.

In a summary, the report says, “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.”

Still, more help is needed.

Iran’s “cooperation has been reactive rather than proactive,” the report says.  “Iran’s active cooperation and full transparency are indispensable for full and prompt implementation of the work plan.”

In addition, agency efforts to monitor Iran’s current nuclear activities have been hampered by inadequate transparency, according to the report.

“As a result, the agency’s knowledge about Iran’s current nuclear program is diminishing,” the report says.

The August work plan called for Iran and the agency to address a series of nuclear issues in sequence, not simultaneously, according to a schedule that called for completion within three to four months.

Now on the just the second item in that sequence, officials appear already to be well behind schedule.

The current item under discussion entails Iran’s efforts to acquire uranium enrichment technology, specifically two equipment models based on Pakistani designs known as P-1 and P-2 centrifuges.

ElBaradei’s report provides new detail surrounding Iran’s program to acquire the centrifuge technology from the international nuclear smuggling network once led by top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.  The first P-1 centrifuge designs were delivered in 1987, and officials decided to ramp up centrifuge production in the mid-1990s.

Today, Iran has installed nearly 3,000 P-1 centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment facility, according the report.  While that equipment could theoretically enrich uranium up to weapon-grade levels, agency tests have indicated that Iran has so far enriched material only to 4 percent, typical of enrichment levels used for nuclear power plant fuel.

As for the more advanced P-2 centrifuges, Iran reported that it first received engineering drawings in 1996 but that relatively little work has been conducted since.

Agency officials found that Iranian accounts of its centrifuge pursuits were largely consistent with documentary evidence and with interviews of individuals who participated in the Khan network.

Nevertheless, the process has been marked by the need for agency officials to repeatedly query their Iranian counterparts for more data, and the report offers no hint on the timeline for resolving the matter and moving to the next item of the work plan (Greg Webb, Global Security Newswire, Nov. 16).

International response to ElBaradei’s report has so far followed established patterns, with Iranian officials claiming full exoneration and Western officials reaffirming a U.N. Security Council demand that Tehran freeze the nation’s key nuclear programs.

The report “means all the claims that Iran’s nuclear activities have a military agenda and are deviant are not true,” said Saeed Jalili, the nation’s new lead nuclear negotiator.  The underpinning for the Security Council demands and sanctions “has collapsed,” he added.

“We think that today’s report does not in any way, shape or form answer the questions that the U.N. Security Council has had about Iran’s nuclear program,” countered U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns.  “Nothing in today’s IAEA report alleviates our major concern that Iran is trying develop the technology that would lead to a nuclear capability” (Sciolino/Broad, New York Times I, Nov. 16).

“The key thing from the director general’s report is that Iran’s cooperation remains selective and incomplete,” added Gregory Schulte, the U.S. ambassador to the agency.  “So Iran has not met the world’s expectation that it would disclose information on both its current and past programs.”

One private nonproliferation expert leaned toward the U.S. position, the Washington Post reported.

“ElBaradei wants to focus on the positive in terms of the accounting for the past,” said George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  “But in the big strategic picture, the report is wholly negative because Iran is not suspending uranium enrichment.  Iran is not only not suspending, but it is spitting in our face by saying they’re going to ramp up with the next generation of centrifuges beyond what they had already.”

Burns said he had planned to meet with diplomats from China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom the week after Thanksgiving to discuss imposing a new round of Security Council sanctions, but China has rejected the talks for now, the Washington Post reported today.  The council has so far levied two sets of limited sanctions against a group of Iranian individuals and companies.

The countries will have another chance to discuss the situation at a meeting next week of the agency’s 35-nation governing board in Vienna (Robin Wright, Washington Post, Nov. 16).

Aside from Security Council measures, the international community has sought to constrain Iran’s nuclear program through other trade controls, and nuclear trade guidelines have defeated dozens of Iranian efforts to buy nuclear-related material and technology over the past nine years, the Times reported today.

An informal group of 45 nations, known as the Nuclear Suppliers Group, has long set rules to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapon technology.

Members have the group have denied at least 75 Iranian attempts to purchase nuclear-related materials, according to a list offered by a diplomat who provided the information to the Times.

The rejections constituted the actions of only seven members of the group, suggesting that far more denials had occurred, according to the diplomat (Warren Hoge, New York Times II, Nov. 16).

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