IAEA's Grossi Warns Iran Nuclear Program May Be Copied
Iran’s developing nuclear program could lead other countries to follow suit, according to Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran’s developing nuclear program could lead other countries to follow suit, according to Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In a lecture delivered in Australia Tuesday, Grossi said that “challenging” diplomacy aimed at restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear was taking place in an “important” context.
“The lack of progress in verifying the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program may affect other countries’ decisions,” Grossi said at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Canberra. “We are now in a situation where Iran’s neighbors could start to fear the worst and plan accordingly. There are countries in the region today looking very carefully at what is happening with Iran, and tensions in the region are rising. Political leaders have on occasionally openly stated they would actively seek nuclear weapons if Iran were to pose a nuclear threat.”
Grossi did not elaborate. There have been intermittent, but unsubstantiated reports, that Saudi Arabia has an arrangement with Pakistan over an option of importing technology needed for nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia plans to operate two nuclear reactors for civil purposes by 2040. Like Tehran, Riyadh is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT).
Grossi said “a defining moment” was being reached for “global nuclear non-proliferation,” with continuing “tendencies towards proliferation” despite a “strong” international non-proliferation framework with 192 NPT signatories and 175 member states in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The IAEA director-general emphasized the importance of additional protocols, agreements reached with non-nuclear states giving greater inspections powers to the agency than required under the more limited NPT ‘safeguards’ arrangements. He argued that additional protocols developed by the 1990s reflected experience of Iraq, where a declared nuclear program in the 1980s hid an undeclared program that was “far from peaceful.”
Grossi also cited a lack of agency access in the nuclear programs of apartheid South Africa, North Korea, Libya, and Syria.
Iran – ‘periods of tension and cooperation’
Turning to Iran, Grossi surveyed 20 years of “countless interactions between the IAEA and Iran aimed at verifying that Iran’s nuclear program is purely peaceful.” He referred to “UN Security Council resolutions demanding that Iran cease all enrichment… times when Iran provisionally applied an additional protocol and times when it did not…[as well as] periods of cooperation and periods of tension.”
Grossi recalled the days of the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which ended with United States withdrawal in 2018 and Iran in 2019 beginning to exceed JCPOA limits on its nuclear program.
“The IAEA was charged [under the JCPOA] with verifying that Iran respected the new restrictions on its nuclear program,” Grossi said. “Of great importance also was Iran’s acceptance once more of the additional protocol.”
‘Credible Information’
Iran ceased to apply the additional protocol in early 2021, leading to restrictions on IAEA inspectors’ access. A series of ad hoc arrangements reached by Grossi with Tehran did not prevent the IAEA chief from declaring in June that with the prevailing level of access he would within four weeks being unable to certify the peaceful nature of the Iran nuclear program.
In his speech Tuesday, Grossi also highlighted agency dissatisfaction at Iran’s explanation of uranium traces found at sites linked to work before 2003 in the face of “assembled credible information indicating a possible military dimension.” The IAEA board last month passed a resolution censuring Iran over its alleged failure to resolve these “longstanding safeguards issues.”
Grossi defended a return to the JCPOA in the face of last week’s failure by the US and Iran, meeting in Doha ‘proximity’ talks, to agree a path back to compliance. The IAEA chief said that after decades of work to combat proliferation “what remains constant is that the Agency is the ultimate guarantee of any agreement.” Without IAEA participation, he argued, “any agreement is unverifiable.”
“The American position has somewhat changed,” since talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal stopped in Vienna, Mohammad Marandi said in an interview published by the news website close to the Revolutionary Guard on Thursday [July 7].
Marandi, a US-born media advisor to Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, who was in Vienna during many rounds of talks since April 2021 until March this year, argued that “The Europeans and the Americans have high motivation for an agreement as we speak and insist to continue negotiations.”
After 11 months of talks in Vienna all sides were signaling in early March that an agreement was at hand, but suddenly two weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine talks stopped without a positive outcome.
Since then, statements by both sides and by observers have indicated that Iran demands the lifting of all US sanctions imposed since May 2018 when former President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of action or JCPOA and began imposing heavy economic penalties on Tehran.
Among these sanctions, the trickiest are those imposed on the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and its web of companies that are closely intertwined with its financial empire.
The IRGC is Iran’s primary military force, but it is also and intelligence organization and has its extraterritorial unit, the Qods or Quds Force that secretly supplies weapons and money to a host of non-state actors involved in terror activities in the region.
Tehran argues that if the IRGC and its companies are not removed from US sanctions list, it will not be able to fully receive the economic benefits of a nuclear agreement. But Washington apparently regards this demand as “extraneous” to JCPOA because these sanctions are not related to Iran’s nuclear program, having been imposed for IRGC’s terror related activities.
Marandi also said that there is a difference in the negotiating positions of the European E3 – the United Kingdom, France and Germany – and the United States. “If the control of the talks were with the Europeans, an agreement would be reached, but the Americans face a lot of domestic opposition to making a deal with Iran, although they also need an agreement.”
Marandi went on to say that President Joe Biden is not popular and his political fortunes in the upcoming Congressional elections in November are not good, while opponents of the JCPOA are very vocal and assertive.
“We should not forget that during the Vienna talks two members of the American negotiating team resigned, because they felt that Iran had received a lot of concessions,” Marandi said, referring to the resignations of Richard Nephew and two other members of the US negotiating team in December over differences with chief negotiator Robert Malley over how far Washington should be willing to go in concessions to Tehran.
Marandi, however, underlined that the US and especially the Europeans need Iran’s oil in the aftermath of the Ukraine invasion.
Asked why some in Iran are criticizing the negotiating team for having failed to make a deal with the West, Marandi said, “One group is influenced by Persian-language broadcasts [from abroad] by Western governments and their allies including the Saudi government and their cyber armies, and another group has political motives.”
Recently some Iranian politicians and pundits have criticized Iran’s close ties to Russia and have hinted that the lack of a nuclear agreement with the West is because of excessive reliance on Moscow.
Foremost among those is former lawmaker Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh who has been blaming Russia for the failure of Iran's nuclear talks with the West.
In several articles and interviews Falahatpisheh has argued that Russia is the main obstacle on the way of the revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The immediate trip to Moscow by Iran’s chief negotiator after two days of indirect talks in Qatar with US envoy Rob Malley led to a lot of criticism in Iran by those who resent Moscow’s influence over Tehran and believe Russia is working against a nuclear agreement with Washington.
Criticism against Russia intensified when in March the nuclear talks came to a halt after Moscow demanded exemptions from Western sanction in its dealings with Iran. This was seen by many Iranians as undue interference by Moscow and a violation of Iran’s national interests.
The Kayhan, which is linked to and maintained by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, asked the lawmaker: "Why do you say Russia has kept the negotiations in suspension? Was it Russia or the United States that violated the JCPOA and withdrew from the nuclear deal imposing 1700 sanctions on Iran?"
The daily further asked: "Is it Russia or the United States that must commit not to break its promises again? Is it Russia or the United States that needs to offer guarantees to Iran?"
In his latest interview, Falahatpisheh, a former member of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Relations, told reformist daily Shargh that "the Islamic Republic should distance the nuclear deal from the war in Ukraine. It is only then that an agreement can take place."
Falahatpisheh reiterated that "The meeting in Doha showed Iran is stuck in the quagmire of Russia's war in Ukraine." He further charged that it was Russia's interests that prevented an agreement between Iran and the United States."
"The interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran were totally ignored in the meeting in Doha," Falahatpisheh stressed, adding that "Iran's interests were sacrificed to secure Russia's interests.
"At the same time, other countries, including some of the Persian littoral states were emboldened to intervene in the nuclear talks and all that is a direct outcome of Iran's behavior. But the nuclear negotiations have only two main sides: Iran and the United States," Falahatpisheh said.
The Kayhan claimed that even EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell has said that Russia was not against an agreement between Iran and America in Doha.
The hardliner daily asked, "Why instead of protesting against the United States' treason and admitting that the United States is not after a balanced and useful agreement with Iran Mr. Falahatpisheh levels accusations against Russia?"
The daily then accused Falahatpisheh of serving US interests and suggested that he has been blackmailed by Washington to make these comments against Russia.
Meanwhile, the Kayhan, a staunch supporter of Russia's policies and its war on Ukraine, published an editorial by hardline commentator Sadollah Zarei that Iran should take lessons from Ukraine and never be dependent on other countries; an argument that contradicts the daily's praise for Iran's often unilateral alliance with Russia.