Exclusive: Ex-IAEA Official Says US And Iran To Sign Deal Soon

In comments reported by the ISNA news agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi said Iran’s degree of cooperation with the IAEA, the United Nations agency, had been constrained by parliamentary legislation passed December 2020 to the ‘safeguards’ level required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

IAEA monitoring would be extended to that required by the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, including implementing the ‘Additional Protocol,’ the spokesman said, once United States sanctions were eased and the 2015 agreement restored.

Kamalvandi’s remarks comes as Iran weighs up the latest US input, submitted August 24 through the European Union, in 16-month talks aimed at restoring the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

One of the challenges in the talks is reportedly a gap between, on one hand, Iran’s expectation that with JCPOA restoration the agency would shelve its enquiries into uranium traces found by inspectors in sites used before 2003 and, on the other hand, the US insistence that Iran must satisfy the IAEA under its NPT commitments regardless of the JCPOA.

Dropping the enquiry?

There have been reports of efforts to finesse a wording that would postpone the matter while the JCPOA gradually comes back into play, and IAEA director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi suggested August 23 the uranium traces might be better investigated with the 2015 deal restored. But Iranian politicians, up to President Ebrahim Raisi, have lately argued forcefully, citing an alleged 2015 precedent, that the agency drop the enquiries before the JCPOA is restored.

100%

As President Joe Biden faces criticisms in the US over his administration’s efforts to revive the JCPOA, from which President Donald Trump withdrew the US in 2018, JCPOA opponents and critics in Tehran have been arguing for a more assertive approach.

Fereydoun Abbasi, a member of the parliament’s energy committee, said Tuesday Iranian negotiators should insist not just on closing “safeguards issues” but on “completely closing” Iran’s case at the agency – possibly referring to the withdrawal of a resolution passed by the 35-nation IAEA board in June censuring Iran over failing to satisfy the agency over the pre-2003 work.

Submarine fuel and political expediency

Abbasi also said Iran should enrich uranium not just to 60 percent – the highest level reached at present – but to 90 percent “both for scientific research and for making nuclear fuel for submarines.” Iran began in 2019 enriching beyond the 3.67 percent cap set by the JCPOA, the year after the US left the 2015 deal and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions. While there are limited civil uses of 90-per-cent-enriched uranium including research and medical isotopes, Iran has no nuclear submarines and 90 percent is widely considered ‘weapons grade.’

While Raisi has not been generally vocal over the nuclear issue and said during his successful 2021 election campaign he would back JCPOA restoration if in the “peoples’ interests,” many of his supporters have been strong opponents of the 2015 agreement. Given previous president Hassan Rouhani’s close association with the JCPOA, signed during his first term in office, it is politically expedient for some Raisi supporters to argue that a ‘tougher’ approach, including ramping up the nuclear program, has yielded concessions from world powers, particularly the US, that would not have happened with Rouhani still in office.

The confidential document, circulated to member states and leaked to Reuters news agency Monday, said Iran was using a cascade with up to 174 machines to enrich to 5 percent purity with two other cascades in differing stages of preparation.

It has been known for months that Iran was preparing three cascades of IR-6s at Natanz, but the latest news comes as Tehran reviews a United States response in talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

Iran has been gradually exceeding limits set by the JCPOA since 2019, the year after the US left the agreement and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions. The use of IR-6 centrifuges was barred by the JCPOA, which restricted Iran to 6,000 ‘first generation’ machines.

Using the IR-6s at Natanz to enrich to 5 percent exceeds slightly the JCPOA cap of 3.67 percent, but is well below the 20 percent limit Iran has reached in volume with IR-6s at the Ferdow site. The IAEA also reported in June that Iran had 43kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent, little short of the 90 percent considered ‘weapons grade.’

While IR-6 centrifuges have been used at Ferdow and at Natanz above ground to enrich to 60 percent, some specialists have suggested Iran faces technical difficulties with the more advanced machines with progress also hampered by the June 2021 attack on the manufacturing plant at Karaj.

One challenge in the nuclear talks – aside from agreeing which US sanctions violate the JCPOA – has been deciding how Iran’s nuclear program should be brought back in line with the agreement, and particularly whether Tehran should lose or store more advanced centrifuges. With gaps US-Iran gaps remaining after a European Union text was circulated August 8, various compromises have reportedly been mooted.

1,000 IR-6 target in sight

The use of IR-6 centrifuges was mandated by the Iranian parliament as tensions increased following the November 2020 killing of scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, widely attributed to Israel. Legislation passed December 2020 against the wishes of then-president Hassan Rouhani instructed the government to expand the nuclear program and restrict IAEA access. Among other clauses, the law required the installation of 1,000 IR-6 centrifuges by the end of 2021, a target the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) failed to meet.

By May, there were 538 IR-6 centrifuges in two cascades at Fordow and one cascade at the above-ground Natanz pilot plant. The AEOI announced plans in June to install two more IR-6 cascades underground at Natanz, in addition to one already planned there, which would apparently bring the AEOI in line with the 2020 law.

Report: Iran-US overcome another hurdle

Reuters reported Monday, citing “three sources familiar with the matter,” that Washington and Tehran had found a way to overcome an apparent sticking point in the nuclear talks. While President Ebrahim Raisi reiterated Monday that Iran expects the IAEA to drop enquiries into Tehran’s pre-2003 nuclear work as part of JCPOA restoration, the US has insisted the agency’s probe relates to Iran’s ‘safeguards’ commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty and is distinct from the JCPOA.

According to the Reuters report, a form of words has been developed allowing the matter to be postponed, although the agency gave no details.

All sides, including the IAEA, are aware the JCPOA gave the agency greater powers of inspection. IAEA director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi in an interview August 23 suggested questions over the pre-2003 work, which center on unexplained uranium traces, might be better tackled with the JCPOA back in place.

Speaking during an event in Switzerland’s Basel on Monday to mark 125 years since the First Zionist Congress, Cohen denounced the emerging nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, saying that Israel “will continue to do whatever needs to be done” to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms if a deal is signed.

“Without going into too many details, I can tell you the Mossad had many successes in the fight against Iran’s nuclear program,” he said, adding, “We operated around the world and on Iranian soil itself. In the very heartland of the ayatollahs.”

He mentioned as an example the 2018 operation to snatch a trove of Iranian documents -- including draft designs for a nuclear warhead -- which proved Tehran has lied about the military dimensions of its atomic program. "The Iranian regime is lying to the whole world, and we proved it when we brought thousands of documents from the Iranian archives, documents that proved that the Iranians lied to the International Atomic Energy Agency."

“We can never allow a regime that calls for our destruction to get its finger on the nuclear trigger,” Cohen warned.

Earlier in the day, Israeli President Isaac Herzog urged the IAEA to continue its probe of Iran, after President Ebrahim Raisi threatened Israel and said Tehran won’t return to the 2015 nuclear deal unless the UN watchdog stops its investigation into uranium traces found at unexplained sites. “The IAEA’s independence is critical. It should be strictly adhered to, including its ability to investigate violations of nuclear developments in Iran,” Herzog said in Bern at a press conference with Swiss President Ignazio Cassis.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been demanding proper explanations from Iran regarding uranium traces found at several sites used in its nuclear program before 2003. Reports in recent weeks have indicated that Tehran wants the closure of this probe before a deal is concluded to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, JCPOA.

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi and Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran speaking on Monday said that the IAEA probe must be closed before an agreement is reached to revive the JCPOA.

Eslami speaking during a provincial visit said that “The essence of the JCPOA negotiations is the dismissal of these charges and denying an excuse to the enemy that constantly” brings up the issue.

The United States and its European allies are not willing to reverse a resolution they spearheaded in June at the IAEA Board of Governors to demand answers from Iran.

Last week, Eslami doubled down on his demand after a senior US official told Reuters on August 22 that Iran had shelved its demand to end the probe. It is not clear to what degree the IAEA dispute would be detrimental to an agreement that seems to be far advanced.

The White House National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby on Sunday said, "We are certainly closer today than we were about two weeks ago thanks to Iran being willing to concede on a couple of major issues. But There are still gaps that remain between all sides.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli media on Sunday published what it said was the timeline of the JCPOA restoration as proposed by the European Union, which acts as a mediator between Iran and the United States.

The process envisages a 165-day period for the full restoration of the JCPOA, but before that, the US and Iran are supposed to reach a deal to free Western prisoners in exchange for freeing Iranian funds frozen because of US sanctions.

The 165-day period starts with Day Zero, when President Joe Biden would rescind three executive orders related to sanctions and other measures against Iran. This will open the way to first unfreeze $7 billion held by South Korean banks.

Iran would reduce its uranium enrichment from 60 percent to 20 percent and will hold on to the fissile material it already has.

The Biden Administration will send the deal to the US Congress within five days in the framework of the Iran Nuclear Review Act (INARA) of May 2015, which requires any deal lifting Iran sanctions to be reviewed by the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Short of formal treaty requiring Senate ratification, this is what the Biden Administration hopes to offer political cover for the deal, but its passage in the Senate is doubtful given the current 50-50 split in the chamber. If it does not pass Biden can use his presidential veto.

The Jerusalem Post in a report on Sunday wrote, “There is, however, still a chance of a majority opposing a deal, amid growing concerns in Washington that Russia will use Iran as a conduit to avoid sanctions.”

Sixty days after Day Zero, the UN Security Council will be notified of JCPOA restoration, and the US would grant a one-time permission to Iran to export 50 million barrels of oil it has stored.

This information confirms with what was leaked in Tehran that Iran International reported on August 19.

By this time Iran would stop enriching above 5 percent, and “would have to fulfil its commitments to the IAEA regarding its ongoing investigation” into uranium traces found at undeclared sites.

Therefore, Iran’s insistence that the IAEA probe should be dropped shows there is still no final agreement on this issue.

Calling the EU’s text of August 8, currently being discussed between the United States and Iran a “bad agreement,” Lapid claimed it had departed from what US President Joe Biden July had told Israel to anticipate.

The Israeli government, presumably after seeing the EU text, was then perturbed. “We told the Americans: ‘This is not what President Biden wanted.’ This is not what he talks about during his visit to the country,” Lapid said.

The Israeli prime minister claimed only last week that Israel had pushed the US into a harder negotiating position over reviving the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which successive Israeli governments have opposed.

But Lapid, four months away from an Israeli election, suggested Sunday that Israel had been unable to “introduce amendments to the agreement” because of a speech made to Congress in March 2015 by former prime minister and political rival Benjamin Netanyahu. While Netanyahu had compared the US and Israel as “promised lands,” US officials slammed as a cheap election ploy his claim that theJCPOA, which came into play July 2015, would ‘guarantee’ Iran a nuclear weapon.

Lapid said the aim of the coalition government that replaced Netanyahu’s administration in 2021, with Lapid as prime minister since July 2022, had been to “fight against the agreement with all our might, but without harming our strategic relations with the US, and without harming their attention to our arguments."

100%

Arguments in Israel may intensify as talks to revive the JCPOA have reached what Joseph Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, called the “the crucial moment” in an interview published Sunday with Kronen Zeitung, the leading Austrian newspaper. “I’m optimistic, it’s the last millimeters,” Borrell said. “This [restoring the 2015 agreement] makes the world a little safer.”

Nasser Kanaani, spokesman for the Iranian foreign minister, told the official news agency IRNA Sunday that the latest US input, relayed by the EU August 24, was being reviewed technically and that Tehran would reply “as soon as the summary is formed and the details are checked.” Nour News tweeted this would take until “at least” the end of the week, presumably meaning Friday September 2.

Official news agency dismisses ‘false’ report

Kanaani called for all to respect the confidentiality of talks, which were on a “positive and forward trend” despite a “few remaining issues” that were “sensitive, important and decisive.” IRNA separately quoted an “informed source” criticizing the newspaper Jomhuriyeh Eslami for Sunday’s article claiming Tehran had in the talks demanded that Washington compel “western” companies to trade with Iran.

The newspaper’s story was “totally false,” the source told IRNA, suggesting that Iranian media relaying “wrong claims” from foreign media designed to “put pressure on Iran” were in effect becoming a “base for the enemy.”

Qatar has also continued mediation efforts. Mohammed bin Abdulaziz bin Saleh Al-Khulaifi, an assistant foreign minister, met Saturday with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani. The Qatari foreign ministry said he had stressed “the importance of advancing further in order to revive the nuclear agreement which is in the interest of the security and stability of the region.” Following discussions with Bagheri Kani, Khulaifi spoke by phone with Enrique Mora, the EU official who has coordinated the nuclear talks.