Iran International
Tehran said Wednesday that before the 2015 nuclear deal is revived it will not give the IAEA access to data from cameras at a new centrifuge parts plant in Esfahan.
Mohammad Reza Ghaebi, Head of Iran's Permanent Mission to International Organizations in Vienna and acting ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told reporters in Vienna that Iran would not provide access to the cameras installed by the agency in Esfahan if the 2015 nuclear deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not restored.
“That is why the agency has announced that it was unable to confirm whether or not the manufacturing of spare parts for centrifuges has begun in Esfahan,” Ghaebi noted.
The Esfahan site was built to replace the TESA Karaj Complex, a now decommissioned workshop in the west of the capital Tehran. The Karaj site was damaged in a June 2021 attack that Iran said Israel was responsible for. The IAEA has confirmed that the production of centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows at TESA Karaj Complex has stopped.
Ghaebi added that on April 4 Iran informed the IAEA that all the machines for production had been transferred from Karaj to Natanz and on the same day allowed the agency's inspectors verify the move and that the machines were not operating.
IAEA inspectors installed surveillance cameras at the Esfahan facility January 24 to ensure the machines intended for the production of centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows were under monitoring but the production of the parts there had not started.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that in a new confidential report to its member states, the IAEA has said that Iran moved all its machines making centrifuge parts from the workshop at Karaj to its Natanz site. The equipment, according to the report, remained under IAEA seal at Natanz and was not operational.
The report also said that Iran set up another site at Esfahan where the IAEA has also installed cameras but Iran has not given access to the data and recordings from these cameras.
“Without access to the data and recordings collected by these cameras, the agency is unable to confirm whether the production of centrifuge components at the workshop in Esfahan has begun,” the report to IAEA member states said according to Reuters.
In December 2020 the Iranian Parliament passed a law to mandate the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) mandating the government, if US sanctions against Iran were not lifted, to start 20 percent enrichment, install 1,000 advanced centrifuges, and produce at least 120 kg of highly enriched uranium (which is at least 20 percent) within two months of the bill’s approval.
The legislation also required reduction of IAEA monitoring to the to the level required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT). The agency had exercised greater access both under the JCPOA and Iran’s Additional Protocol to the NPT.
Under temporary agreements with the IAEA, Iran continues to keep footage from the agency's cameras instead of destroying them, as it had said it would, but does not provide them to the IAEA.
The IAEA reported that the equipment − used to make parts for centrifuges, which enrich uranium − “remained under Agency seal at this location in Natanz and, therefore, were not operating.” Six weeks ago, Iran set up a plant to make parts at Esfahan, another nuclear facility, a move reported to the IAEA in January.
The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, had its access to Iran’s atomic program reduced in early 2021. Iran in December agreed to the installation of new cameras at Karaj, after an apparent attack June 2021 widely attributed to Israel. Iran’s security review at the site had threatened a temporary arrangement over monitoring equipment agreed by Iran and the agency in February.
In another area closely followed by the agency, Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammed Eslami said Wednesday that Iran had passed documents to the IAEA related to uranium traces in three sites used before 2003.
Iran and the agency in March agreed a plan to resolve controversy over the traces, which many analysts believe resulted from equipment supplied by Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan. Iran was due to supply answers and evidence by late March, with outstanding questions resolved by June 20.
"We have handed over the documents on March 20 to the agency,” Eslami told a televised news conference. “They are reviewing those documents and probably the agency's representatives will travel to Iran for further talks, and then the IAEA will present its conclusion.”
While the IAEA is not directly involved in Vienna talks between Iran and world powers aimed at reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, it would monitor a revived deal and IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi has made clear the agency would be better placed to access Iran’s nuclear program under powers conferred by the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Grossi said last month he would report on Iran’s answers over the pre-2003 nuclear work to a Board of Governors' meeting beginning June 6.
New complications
With delays in the nuclear talks, both with new complications over with sanctions against Russia and disagreements between the US and Iran, JCPOA opponents in both Washington and Tehran have stepped up their efforts.
Tasnim news agency reported Tuesday that 190 Iran parliamentarians had written to President Ebrahim Raisi urging Iran’s “red lines” and national interest to be upheld. In Washington, Democrat Congressman Josh Gottheimer, among 15 Democrats holding a press conference Wednesday criticizing the Vienna talks, tweeted: “are we seriously going to let a war criminal– Vladimir Putin – be the guarantor of this deal?”
Russia was one of six world powers that signed the JCPOA in 2015. Former president Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Iran, which a year later began expanding its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits. President Biden has expressed commitment to revive the JCPOA but has continued ‘maximum pressure.’