UN Agency Still Central To Iran Nuclear Deal Prospects

Eslami spoke at length with the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) in Tehran, reiterating his earlier position that UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) must shelve an investigation about Iran’s past nuclear activities before a new agreement restores the 2015 nuclear deal, JCPOA.

ISNA asked Eslami if IAEA’s questions about traces of uranium found at three previously undeclared sites are in essence a PMD (possible military dimension) inquiry or a safeguards issue. “In my view, these are all political excuses, similar to the PMD [issue]. The sites they name and the accusations they make are the same that comes out of the Zionists’ and hypocrites’ mouths. They have been repeating these for years.”

In April 2018, Israel revealed a throve of documents it said were stolen from a nuclear warehouse in Tehran that showed Iran had engaged in a secret nuclear program before 2003 with military dimensions. These documents at least partly shared with the IAEA rekindled interest in re-examining the pre-2003 undeclared Iranian nuclear program. The Israeli revelation came days before President Donald trump announced the US withdrawal from the JCPOA.

After a long delay, Tehran allowed the IAEA to inspect sites that Israel named in 2019 based on the documents it said were taken out of Iran. It was during this inspection that the UN watchdog found traces of uranium, which were not supposed to be there. This raised the likelihood of PMD.

Iran provided explanations to the IAEA, that until now the agency finds not fully convincing and demands satisfactory answers, as talks to revive the JCPOA have reached a critical stage.

The exact contents of a draft agreement presented by the European Union to reach an agreement is not known, but it is clear that the IAEA demands are linked to the finalization of a deal.

Eslami insisted in his interview with ISNA that Israel is behind IAEA’s demands for more explanations by Iran, a position Tehran has been espousing for a long time. “The same mouth that says it wants to bomb and obliterate Iran’s nuclear industry, also presents these fake documents,” Eslami said referring to Israeli military threats to prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons.

ISNA asked the nuclear chief why then Iran allowed the IAEA to go and investigate these sites. “Unfortunately, the previous government [of President Hassan Rouhani] accepted that they come and see these sites. They came and saw, and questions continued,” Eslami said. He made an accusation that IAEA’s probe “is the continuation of the same sabotage and terror,” referring to a series of operations against Iran’s nuclear scientists and sensitive sites widely attributed to Israel.

Eslami also rejected reports that Iran has relinquished its demand to shelve the IAEA probe. “What we wrote was decisive. Our aim and insistence is that if this case is not closed by the date when [JCPOA] ‘re-implementation’ is to take place, there will be no ‘re-implementation, and we will not retreat and we cannot retreat.”

The two leaders held a meeting Monday evening at the prime minister's office to discuss the restoration of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and the talks between Iran and world powers which appeared to have advanced in the past week.

After the briefing with Lapid,opposition leader and Likud Party head Benjamin Netanyahu said he was "more concerned about Iran” than before the meeting. He accused Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz of failing to prevent a “disastrous Iran nuclear deal” and wasting time by not campaigning in the United States against The Islamic Republic.

“I have a clear message for the ayatollahs in Tehran: On November 1, we’ll bring strong and decisive leadership to Israel that will ensure that with or without a deal, they will never have nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said, referring to Israel’s upcoming parliamentary elections.

Lapid’s Yesh Atid party also attacked Netanyahu in a tweet, accusing him of endangering the security of Israeli citizens. “While Netanyahu continues to produce and direct tone-deaf videos, the Israeli government led by Lapid will do everything to guard national security interests,” the party said in its tweet Monday evening.

The Prime Minister, however, said in a statement that he doesn't want a feud with Netanyahu over Israel’s positioning vis-a-vis the prospect of a restored Iran nuclear deal.

“There is great importance in a united Israeli stance against the Iranian effort to obtain a nuclear weapon. I call on the opposition leader and everyone not to let political considerations harm our national security,” Lapid said in a statement.

The two Israeli leaders had exchanged barbs before the Monday briefing.

In a statement before his meeting with the Prime Minister, Netanyahu had accused Lapid and Ganz of falling asleep on the watch and letting Iran "finalize a deal which jeopardizes our future…Lapid and Gantz' incompetence will be remembered in history as the Iranian nuclear fiasco.”

Responding to Netanyahu’s accusations, Lapid had said all Netanyahu had done when he was prime minister was giving press conferences and presentations. “The damage he caused during his tenure to Israel's two most important strategic issues — the fight against the Iran nuclear weapon and relations with the US — is serious and deep and we are still repairing it,” he said.

Iranian officials have not commented on the argument between Israeli leaders but in a press conference Sunday, President Ebrahim Raisi dismissed Israeli threats against Iran and referring to theassassination of Iran's nuclear scientists said no matter what Israel does, it cannot stop Iran and deprive the Iranian nation of "its inalienable right to access peaceful nuclear technology”. He also insisted that the Islamic Republic is not pursuing nuclear weapons.

The IRGC-linked Fars news agency on Sunday said analysts in Tehran believe that Israel and the United States are strategic partners and Tel Aviv's positions on the Vienna talks plays a complementary role to Washington's policy.

"Whenever the US is in trouble in negotiations with Iran and has failed to fulfil its purpose, the Zionist regime steps onto the scene to play a complementary role," senior analyst Seyed Mostafa Khoshchesm told Fars. “"The Israeli regime plays the role of a bad cop and conducts terror operations, cyber and sabotage attacks against Iran to serve the US interests," he said.

Speaking Tuesday, the once senior official at the International Atomic Energy Agency, who is close to the United States government, said President Joe Biden had resolved to take the step in advance of November’s mid-term US Congressional elections.

The official said Washington had informed Israel of the decision, and that four Arab states – Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – had been told during Biden’s July Middle East tour that the US would help them develop nuclear technology. While the Israeli leadership has consistently opposed the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), Prime Minister Yair Lapid and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu are vying over the Iranian ‘threat’ as the November 1 parliamentary election approaches.

The former IAEA official gave no indication as to how Iran and the US had resolved the differences over JCPOA restoration that have characterized 16 months of talks, both with five other world powers in Vienna, and bilaterally with European Union mediation.

Leaked information both in Iran and in Israeli media about a proposed European Union plan indicate a broad agreement on many issues, but lingering questions of Iranian demands over “guarantees”, “verification” and a lingering IAEA probe about Iran’s pre-2003 undeclared nuclear activities.

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An IAEA report leaked Monday revealed Iran’s latest breach of the JCPOA with the installation at the Natanz nuclear site of additional IR-6 centrifuges, advanced models for enriching uranium barred under the JCPOA.

There have also been consistent reports of differences over enquiries by the IAEA into unexplained uranium traces found at several sites linked to work done by Iran before 2003 but not declared as nuclear-related. While the US and European JCPOA signatories have insisted the IAEA enquiry should go on regardless of what happens with the JCPOA, President Ebrahim Raisi insisted Monday that the JCPOA could be restored only once the IAEA dropped the probe, which Tehran insists results from allegations made for ‘political’ reasons in 2018 by Israel.

Finessing the wording

Earlier Tuesday, Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, criticized “excessive” demands made by the IAEA, while Fereydoun Abbasi, a member of the parliament’s energy committee, said Iran should enrich uranium not just to 60 percent – the highest level reached – but to 90 percent “both for scientific research and for making nuclear fuel for submarines.”

Tehran has made no public response to the latest US input in the nuclear talks, submitted August 24 through the European Union. But there have been reports of efforts to finesse a wording that would postpone the IAEA probe 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 back in place.

There have also been indications of ‘principlist’ politicians in Tehran claiming the US had made significant concessions in the talks process. Real or not, such ‘concessions’ would help suggest Raisi’s government, which took office August 2021 with talks underway, had secured a more favorable outcome than would have been possible under the centrist President Hassan Rouhani, a staunch advocate of the JCPOA.

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.

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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.