International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano called on Iran to take concrete measures to resolve outstanding issues with the U.N. nuclear watchdog during an address at the Brookings Institution on October 31. He discussed the IAEA’s role in the verification and monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program and noted that Tehran has been hesitant to disclose the potential military aspects of its program. Amano stated that “Iran’s nuclear material under IAEA safeguards is in peaceful purposes, but we cannot provide assurance that all material in Iran is in peaceful purposes.” But in a comment to Al-Monitor after the event, Amano also said that Iran's faltering cooperation “should not be an impediment” to reaching a comprehensive nuclear deal. The following is a video from the event with excerpts from Amano’s remarks.
The main safeguards issues on the agenda in recent years have concerned Iran, North Korea, and Syria. These are very different cases. What they have in common is the fact that these countries have failed to fully implement their safeguard agreements with IAEA and other relevant obligations. This makes it very difficult for us to do our job effectively. As far as the IAEA is concerned the Iran story began in August 2002 when media reported that Iran was building a large underground nuclear related facility in Natanz which had been declared to the Agency previously. Iran subsequently acknowledged its existence and put it under IAEA safeguards. Let me say at this point that it is vitally important that the IAEA and this Director General should be impartial. That means applying the same principles to all country. For me the fundamental principle is that all of the safeguards agreements which we conclude with our member states should be implemented fully, so should other relevant obligations such as resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.
When I became Director General in late 2009 I applied this principle to Iran. I felt that spelling out the issues with clarity was an essential first step towards resolving the problem. My quarterly reports from February 2010 almost stated that nuclear material declared by Iran was not being diverted from peaceful purposes. But I also stated that Iran was not providing sufficient cooperation to enable the Agency to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran was in peaceful activities. I urged Iran to implement the additional protocol and clarify the issues related to what had become known as possibly military dimensions to its nuclear program. The next important question was how to approach these possible military dimensions. Our technical experts has spent years painstakingly and objectively analyzing a huge quantify of information about theft program from the wide variety of independent sources including form the Agency's own efforts and from interim information provided by Iran itself, as well as from a number of member states. After carefully reviewing the issue I decided to present the detailed report in November 2011. In that report I stated that the information assembled by the Agency was overall credible. It was consistent in terms of technical content, individuals, and organizations involved and timeframes. The information indicated that Iran had carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. The information also indicated that prior to the end of 2003 these activities took place under structured program in that some activities might still be ongoing.
I would like to be very clear on this issue because there have been some misunderstandings. The IAEA has not said that Iran has nuclear weapons; we have not drawn conclusions from the information at our disposal about possible military dimension to the Iranian nuclear program. What we have said is that Iran has to clarify these issues because there is broadly credible information indicating that it engaged in activities of this nature. In other words Iran has a case to answer. In response to my report both the IAEA Board of Governors and the United Nations Security Council adopted resolutions asking Iran to cooperate and to clarify their issues relating to possible military dimension in order to restore international confidence in an exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear program. On the basis of these resolutions the Agency had talks with Iran over the next two years; however, virtually no progress was made. At times we were going around in circles.
Last year we started to see some movement. In November I when to Tehran and signed the framework for cooperation with Iran under which it agreed to resolve all the outstanding issues, past and present. We agreed to take a step-by-step approach. Initially Iran implemented the practical measures which is agreed with the Agency under the framework for cooperation fairly well. However, since the summer of 2014 progress on implementing agreed measures has been limited. Two important practical measures which should have been implemented two months ago have still not been implemented. The Agency invited Iran to propose new practical measures for the next step of our cooperation, but it has not done so. Clarifying issues to possible military dimensions is not an endless process. It could be done within a reasonable timeline, but how far and how fast we can go depends very much on Iran's cooperation. I have made clear that Agency will provide an assessment to our Board of Governors after it obtains a good understanding of the whole picture concerning issues with possibly military dimensions. It is then up to the Board to decide the future course of action.
As you may know there are two tracks of negotiation on the Iran nuclear issue. One is the IAEA Iran track, the other is the other so-called P5+1 and Iran track in which the IAEA is also involved. These six countries, China, France, Germany, Russia, Britain, and United States, agreed on a joint plan of action with Iran in November 2013. The aim was to achieve a mutually agreed long-term comprehensive solution that would ensure Iran's nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful. All seven countries asked the IAEA to undertake monitoring and the verification of voluntary measure to be implemented by Iran which we are doing. The P5+1 negotiations with Iran are continuing. I should mention that Iran is still not implementing their additional protocol. This is contrary to the resolution of the Board of Governors and under Security Council. Implementation of additional protocol by Iran is essential for the Agency to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in the country. The current status of affairs is that Iran's nuclear material under IAEA safeguards is in peaceful purposes, but we cannot provide assurance that all material in Iran is in peaceful purposes. In order to provide that assurance Iran has to clarify the issues relating to possible military dimensions and implement the additional protocol.
What is needed now is concrete actions on the part of Iran to resolve all outstanding issues. I remain committed to working with Iran to restore international confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear program. But I repeat, this is not a never ending process; it is very important that Iran fully implement the framework for cooperation sooner than later. The IAEA can make a unique contribution to resolving the Iran nuclear issue, but we cannot do this on our own. The sustained influence of the international community are needed, as is Iran's full cooperation to resolve all outstanding issues.
Click here to access the full transcript