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[ Posted below is 'The Persian Puzzle', a three
part article by Siddharth Varadarajan ]
#1.
The Hindu
September 21, 2005
Opinion - Leader Page Articles
Iran and the invention of a nuclear crisis
by Siddharth Varadarajan
The world has forgotten everything and learned
nothing from the charade over weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq.
BARELY TWO years after the United States invaded
Iraq in the name of weapons of mass destruction
which never existed, the world is being pushed
towards a confrontation with Iran on a similarly
flawed premise.
On September 17, Iran's President, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad told the United Nations General
Assembly that his country would not give up its
sovereign right to produce nuclear power using
indigenously enriched uranium. The Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran signed
in 1974, allows Iran to build facilities
involving all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle,
including enrichment, subject to international
safeguards. Given the fact that the U.S.
continues to impose sanctions on the development
of Iran's oil and gas sector (under the
extra-territorial `Iran Libya Sanctions Act'), it
is only logical that the Iranians should seek a
civilian nuclear energy industry in which they
won't have to be dependent on the West for fuel
like enriched uranium.
However, as a major concession to Britain, France
and Germany - the so-called EU-3 which has sought
to prevail upon Iran to abandon enrichment in
exchange for guarantees of assured fuel supply -
Mr. Ahmadinejad offered to run his country's
enrichment plants as joint ventures with private
and public sector firms from other countries.
Britain and France have rejected this offer,
which the Iranians say is a demonstration of
their intent to be as transparent as possible.
The EU-3 and the U.S. insist Teheran must not
work on enrichment because once the technology is
mastered, the same facilities could be used to
produce not just low enriched uranium (LEU) for
energy reactors but highly enriched uranium (HEU)
for bombs. Accordingly, they have circulated a
resolution in the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors meeting - which
began Monday - calling for Iran's civilian
nuclear programme to be referred to the U.N.
Security Council as a potential threat to
international peace and security.
It is not difficult for the U.S. and its European
allies to get a majority of the 35-nation Board
of Governors to recommend referral; however, the
board has operated on the basis of consensus for
the past 12 years - ever since the forced vote
referring North Korea to the UNSC split the IAEA
- and the non-aligned group of countries and
China remain opposed to taking Iran to the
Security Council. If the U.S. is convinced a
consensus will elude it for the foreseeable
future, it could push for a vote this week rather
than wait any longer. Next month, following the
annual IAEA General Conference, a new Board of
Governors will take over. And with Cuba and Syria
entering the Board in place of Peru and Pakistan,
the ranks of those firmly opposed to an SC
referral are likely to increase.
Although the immediate trigger for the European
and American pressure is Teheran's decision last
month to end its voluntary suspension of uranium
conversion at its Esfahan facility, the Iranian
case cannot be referred to the Security Council
on this ground.
First, the NPT allows uranium conversion and
other processes central to enrichment. Secondly,
the Esfahan facility is under IAEA safeguards and
as recently as September 2, i.e. nearly a month
after Iran resumed uranium conversion there, the
Director-General of the Agency, Mohammad
El-Baradei, certified that "all the declared
nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for
and, therefore, such material is not diverted to
prohibited activities." Thirdly, the agreement to
suspend enrichment, which Iran reached with the
EU-3 at Paris last November, clearly states that
"the E3/EU recognize that this suspension is a
voluntary confidence building measure and not a
legal obligation." In other words, if the
voluntary suspension was not a legal obligation,
the ending of that suspension can hardly be made
the grounds for legal action by either the IAEA
or the UN.
Myth of `concealment'
If at all Iran is to be referred, then, its
desire to pursue a complete fuel cycle for its
civilian nuclear energy programme cannot be cited
as legal grounds. Nor can the hitherto "secret"
nature of its fuel cycle facilities currently
under construction. Though there has been a
surfeit of motivated and ill-informed commentary
about how Iran "concealed" its uranium enrichment
programme from the IAEA "in violation of the NPT"
until it was "caught cheating" in 2002, the fact
is that Iran was not obliged to inform the Agency
about those facilities at the time. David
Albright and Corey Hinderstein - who first
provided the international media with satellite
imagery and analysis of the unfinished fuel
fabrication facility at Natanz and heavy water
research reactor at Arak on December 12, 2002 -
themselves noted that under the safeguards
agreement in force at the time, "Iran is not
required to allow IAEA inspections of a new
nuclear facility until six months before nuclear
material is introduced into it." In fact, it was
not even required to inform the IAEA of their
existence until then, a point conceded by Britain
at the March 2003 Board of Governors meeting. The
Arak reactor is planned to go into operation in
2014. As for the pilot fuel enrichment plant
(PFEP) at Natanz, it is still not operational
today.
This `six months' clause was a standard part of
all IAEA safeguards agreements signed in the
1970s and 1980s. It was only in the 1990s,
following the Iraq crisis, that the Agency sought
to strengthen itself by asking countries to sign
`subsidiary arrangements' requiring the handing
over of design information about any new facility
six months prior to the start of construction.
Many signed, some did not. Iran accepted this
arrangement only in February 2003. Later that
year, it signed the highly-intrusive Additional
Protocol. Though it has yet to ratify it, Teheran
has allowed the IAEA to exercise all its
prerogatives under the protocol, including more
than 20 "complementary accesses," some with a
notice period of two hours or less. Dr.
El-Baradei also reported that "Iran has, since
October 2003, provided the Agency upon its
request, and as a transparency measure, access to
certain additional information and locations
beyond that required under its Safeguards
Agreement and Additional Protocol."
What Iran has yet to do is provide the IAEA
sufficient information on the history of its
centrifuge programme for it to satisfy itself
that there are no "undeclared nuclear materials
or activities." However, this alone can hardly
constitute grounds for referring the country to
the Security Council under Article III.B.4 of the
Agency's Statute since the IAEA, in the past two
years, has found discrepancies in the utilisation
of nuclear material in as many as 15 countries.
Among these are South Korea, Taiwan, and Egypt.
In 2002 and 2003, for example, South Korea
refused to let the IAEA visit facilities
connected to its laser enrichment programme.
Subsequently, though Seoul confessed to having
secretly enriched uranium to a 77 per cent
concentration of U-235 - a grade sufficient for
fissile material - neither the U.S. nor EU
suggested referring the matter to the UNSC.
In contrast, there is no evidence whatsoever that
Iran has produced weapon-grade uranium. Despite
intrusive inspections, no facility or plan to
produce weapon-grade uranium has been discovered,
nor have any weapon designs surfaced.
o o o o
#2.
The Hindu
September 22, 2005
Opinion - News Analysis
What the IAEA really found in Iran
by Siddharth Varadarajan
The best way for the world to satisfy itself that
there are no undeclared nuclear activities in
Iran is for the IAEA to use its inspection rights
under the Additional Protocol.
THE REPORT Mohammed El-Baradei presented to the
International Atomic Energy Agency Board of
Governors on September 2, 2005 represents the
most recent assessment of Iran's nuclear
programme made by the watchdog body. In this
report, the Director-General sought to quantify
the progress made in dealing with a number of
adverse findings first brought to the Board's
notice on November 15, 2004.
Those findings involved six instances of Iran's
"failure to report" certain nuclear activities,
mostly concerning enrichment and laser
experimentation and including the import of
uranium from China in 1991; two instances of
"failure to declare" enrichment facilities; six
instances of "failure to provide design
information or updated design information" for
certain facilities, and a general charge of
"failure on many occasions to cooperate to
facilitate the implementation of safeguards, as
evidenced by extensive concealment activities."
Dr. El-Baradei then noted that Iran had taken a
number of corrective actions as a result of which
"the Agency was able by November 2004 to confirm
certain aspects of Iran's declarations [related
to conversion activities and laser enrichment],
which ... would be followed up as matters of
routine safeguards implementation." This was a
major statement by the IAEA because, in effect,
it was saying that much of the "concealment" the
Iranians are accused of resorting to in the past
had been effectively neutralised and was no
longer a source of extra concern for the Agency.
If the IAEA was still not in a position to
declare that Iran had no undeclared nuclear
material and undeclared enrichment activities,
this was for two sets of reasons. First, it was
still assessing Iran's explanations for questions
raised by it about the Gchine uranium mines and
two long-since abandoned research projects into
polonium (Po-210) and plutonium separation.
Secondly, questions still remained on two
important fronts. In the course of its visits to
the not-yet-operational Pilot Fuel Enrichment
Plant at Natanz and the Kalaye Electric Company
in 2004, the IAEA had found trace amounts of
highly enriched uranium (HEU) and low enriched
uranium (LEU), giving rise to concerns that Iran
had already begun enriching uranium - presumably
at an undisclosed third location. The Iranians
denied producing the HEU and LEU but the IAEA
needed to satisfy itself. Moreover, the Agency
felt it had yet to learn the full extent of
Iranian research work on the P-2 gas centrifuge,
the designs for which had been procured from the
A.Q. Khan clandestine network.
After analysis of swipe samples, IAEA experts now
say the HEU was Pakistani and presumably came to
be in Natanz because imported centrifuge
components were contaminated. The origin of the
LEU contamination has yet to be established but
there are some indications it is of Russian
provenance. As for the centrifuges themselves,
the IAEA wants more documentation to convince
itself that Iran is telling the truth about not
pursuing any work on the P-2 design between 1995,
when it first acquired the technology, and 2002,
when it made modifications necessary for
composite rotors. This, then, is the main
outstanding question Iran needs to answer.
No threat to peace
Not only is Iran's failure in this regard far
less dramatic than the American accusations of a
"clandestine weapons programme" and of
"deception," it also cannot conceivably be called
a threat to international peace and security.
Yes, the IAEA has yet to conclude there are no
undeclared nuclear materials or activities in
Iran. But, as Dr. El-Baradei himself noted in his
September 2 report, "the process of drawing such
a conclusion, after an Additional Protocol is in
force, under normal circumstances, is a time
consuming process." Since the Agency believes
Iran has had a "past pattern of concealment,"
this conclusion "can be expected to take longer
than in normal circumstances."
In effect, Dr. El-Baradei was saying that the
IAEA's inspectors should be allowed to do their
work. For this, "Iran's full transparency is
indispensable and overdue." What he did not - and
could not - say was that the inspections process
should not be short-circuited or politicised by
interested parties. A case in point is the
polonium-beryllium controversy, which Washington
had hoped would emerge as Iran's proverbial
smoking gun.
When asked about bismuth irradiation experiments
it had conducted at the Teheran Research Reactor
(TRR) between 1989 and 1993 to extract polonium,
Iran pointed out that it was not required to do
so under the safeguards agreement and that "in
any case, details of the experiments were in the
logbook of the TRR reactor, which has been
safeguarded for 30 years." Polonium has many
civilian applications but also plays a role, when
combined with beryllium, as a neutron initiator
in some nuclear weapon designs. Seizing on this,
the U.S. insisted Iran had imported beryllium as
well. When the IAEA investigated this and ruled
out any such imports, U.S. officials planted
stories about how Dr. El-Baradei had "succumbed
to Iranian pressure." These stories were then
used to build a campaign to deny him another term
as Director-General, a campaign which ultimately
failed.
Regardless of U.S. motivations, however, Iran, at
the end of the day still has a responsibility to
demonstrate to the world that it is in full
compliance with its safeguards obligations. And
the world has the right to satisfy itself that
Iran is not planning to make nuclear weapons.
Earlier this year, Bruno Pellaud, former IAEA
Deputy Director-General for safeguards, was asked
by Swissinfo whether Iran was intent on building
a nuclear bomb. "My impression is not," he
replied, adding that "the IAEA says there is no
evidence of a weapons programme." Dr. Pellaud
then posed a rhetorical question - Is this
naiveté? - and elaborated on his assessment: "My
view is based on the fact that Iran took a major
gamble in December 2003 by allowing a much more
intrusive capability to the IAEA. If Iran had had
a military programme they would not have allowed
the IAEA to come under this Additional Protocol.
They did not have to."
As matters stand, the only major unexplained
issue is the extent of Iran's research work on
the P-2 centrifuge. Even if the Agency's worst
fears are true - that Iran actually worked on the
P-2 design during that time - this matters only
if that knowledge was used to set up another
enrichment facility somewhere else in the
country. Though this is unlikely, especially
given the rather modest achievements on display
at Natanz (which itself was supposed to be a
"concealed" facility), the Additional Protocol
gives the IAEA a broad licence to inspect any
facility it wishes. Using those powers - and
relying on intelligence inputs from the U.S. -
Agency inspectors recently visited military sites
at Kolahdouz, Lavisan, and Parchin. Nothing was
found. If a secret enrichment plant exists, the
enforcement of Iran's safeguards and inspection
obligations is a far better way to unearth it
than the threat of sanctions.
o o o o
#3.
The Hindu
September 23, 2005
Opinion - News Analysis
The world must stand firm on diplomacy
by Siddharth Varadarajan
The `nuclear crisis' is the product of 15 years
of American hostility towards Iran. Any solution
that does not deal with this reality is bound to
fail.
WHEN BRITAIN, France, and Germany volunteered
last year to try and find a diplomatic
alternative to the punitive measures the United
States was demanding against Iran, the
expectation was that the European-3 would have
the skill - and the gumption - to craft a
solution that would address the legitimate
concerns of both Teheran and the `international
community.'
What were these concerns? The world needed
assurance that Iran's pursuit of the nuclear fuel
cycle, including uranium enrichment, would not
lead to nuclear weapons, and Iran needed
assurances that it would not be denied access to
civilian technologies or subjected to sanctions
or the threat of aggression by the U.S. and
Israel, both of which possess nuclear weapons.
Accordingly, the Paris Agreement signed by Iran
and the E3 on November 15, 2004, spoke of a
solution that would "provide objective guarantees
that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for
peaceful purposes." In exchange, Iran was to be
provided "firm guarantees on nuclear,
technological and economic cooperation and firm
commitments on security issues." Given this
framework, Iran said its voluntary suspension of
enrichment-related and reprocessing activities
"will be sustained while negotiations proceed on
a mutually acceptable agreement on long-term
arrangements."
Last month, the E3 slammed the door on the
possibility of a "mutually acceptable agreement"
by presenting proposals that turned the spirit of
the Paris accord upside down. Iran was told
permanently to abandon its enrichment and
reprocessing facilities and heavy water reactor
and provide "a binding commitment not to pursue
fuel cycle activities other than the construction
and operation of light water power and research
reactors." In other words, the only possible
"objective guarantee" the E3 was prepared to
accept against misuse of enrichment facilities
was for Iran not to have them at all.
As if this was not provocative enough, the E3's
proposals on the guaranteed supply of enriched
uranium and security assurances were so vague as
to make a mockery of the concepts of "firm
guarantees" and "firm commitments." For example,
far from committing itself to assist whatever
remains of the Iranian nuclear programme once
fuel cycle-related activity is excluded, all the
E3 was willing to promise was "not to impede
participation in open competitive bidding." Not
surprisingly, the Iranians said this manifest
demonstration of bad faith on the E3's part meant
negotiations had come to an end. Accordingly,
Teheran ended its voluntary suspension and
notified the International Atomic Energy Agency
of its intention to resume conversion activities
at its Esfahan facility. This, in short, is the
backstory to the current crisis
In an analysis of the E3 offer, Paul Ingram of
the British American Security Information Council
(BASIC) - a leading Western arms control
think-tank - called it "vague on incentives and
heavy on demands" and concluded that the European
proposals seemed "designed to fit closely with US
requirements." "Even the establishment of a
buffer store of nuclear fuel is proposed to be
physically located in a third country, rather
than in Iran under safeguards," he noted, adding
that the E3/EU "do not seem to have had the
courage to offer either the substantial, detailed
incentives or a creative, compromise solution on
enrichment which could reasonably have been
expected to receive Iran's endorsement."
Pellaud proposals
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took one
step towards a creative solution when he proposed
running Iranian enrichment facilities as joint
ventures with private and public sector companies
from other countries. Though it has been
dismissed out of hand, the latest Iranian offer
is a variant of a formula that was proposed in
February this year by an IAEA expert group on
"multilateral approaches" to the nuclear fuel
cycle headed by Bruno Pellaud.
The Pellaud committee had been tasked by the IAEA
to recommend measures that could bridge the gap
between a country's right - under the NPT - to
the nuclear fuel cycle, and the proliferation
concerns that would arise from an increase in the
worldwide number of facilities capable of uranium
enrichment or plutonium separation. The relevance
of this issue to the Iran question hardly needs
elaboration.
Of the five proposals made by the committee,
three concerned different types of international
fuel supply guarantees as an incentive for
countries to forswear their own enrichment
facilities, and two were based on the notion of
shared ownership or control. The latter involved
"promoting voluntary conversion of existing
facilities to multilateral nuclear approaches
(MNAs), and pursuing them as confidence-building
measures with the participation of
non-nuclear-weapon states and nuclear-weapon
states, and non-NPT states" - precisely the kind
of offer Mr. Ahmadinejad made in his speech to
the U.N. General Assembly last week - or
"creating, through voluntary agreements and
contracts, multinational, and in particular
regional, MNAs for new facilities based on joint
ownership, drawing rights or co-management."
Could an MNA provide the international community
with the kind of assurances it needs that
enriched uranium would not be diverted to a
clandestine nuclear weapons programme? While
releasing his report earlier this year, Dr.
Pellaud said he believed it could. "A joint
nuclear facility with multinational staff puts
all participants under a greater scrutiny from
peers and partners, a fact that strengthens
non-proliferation and security ... It's difficult
to play games if you have multinationals at a
site."
Instead of threatening sanctions, the E3 should
engage Iran in a dialogue which can develop the
Pellaud-Ahmadinejad proposals to a level where
Teheran can provide "objective guarantees" that
its programme is entirely peaceful and Europe can
give "firm guarantees" and "firm commitments" on
the issues which concern the Iranians. The only
problem, of course, would be what to do about the
Americans.
The fact of the matter is that it is impossible
to separate the present "nuclear crisis" from
Washington's track record of unremitting
hostility towards the Iranian Government. Indeed,
any solution that does not bring about a change
in U.S. behaviour is unlikely to be acceptable or
durable as far as Teheran is concerned. As part
of its long-term framework proposals, therefore,
the E3 must undertake to get the U.S. to abandon
its sanctions against the Iranian oil and gas
industry and drop its aim of bringing about
`regime change' in Iran.
Instead of falling in line with Washington's
pressure on Iran, Europe and the rest of the
world should also ask themselves whether the
cause of international peace and security is
served by selective concern about
`proliferation.' The NPT allows enrichment but
Iran is being told it cannot have a fuel cycle.
The NPT mandates nuclear disarmament but the U.S.
is conducting weapons research and formulating
military doctrines that will weaponise space and
increase the salience of nuclear weapons in its
force posture. Britain and France have no
conceivable nuclear adversaries yet continue to
deploy nuclear weapons. Countries in West Asia
are being told they can never walk out of the NPT
but nothing is done to denuclearise Israel. These
issues too are very much part of the "nuclear
crisis" and it is time something were done to
address them.
(Concluded)
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