Cloud over Iran146;s nuclear programme

Iran could be in serious trouble unless it embarks upon adequate confidence-building measures. The International Atomic Energy Agency...

Iran could be in serious trouble unless it embarks upon adequate confidence-building measures. The International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA report of May 23 mentions that 8220;the Agency will not be able to fully reconstruct the history of Iran8217;s nuclear programme and provide assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran or about the exclusively peaceful nature of that programme8221;. It can8217;t do this because Iran8217;s record is shrouded in controversy.

In fact the international non-proliferation regime is passing through one of its most challenging times. As is evident from the Iranian case, differing perceptions over tackling non-proliferation issues can lead to volatile situations. Tehran today faces fierce opposition, particularly from the US , which accuse s it of developing nuclear weapons in the garb of a peaceful nuclear programme. Iran vehemently denies this is determined to carry on with its enrichment and nuclear fuel cycle related activities.

As early as November 2003, the IAEA8217;s director general had stated in his report to the organisation8217;s board of governors that in a number of instances over an extended period Iran had failed to meet its safeguards obligations. Even Iran had conceded at that point that it has been developing a uranium centrifuge enrichment programme for 18 years, a laser enrichment programme for 12 years, and has produced small amounts of low enriched uranium, and that it had failed to report to the IAEA a number of activities involving nuclear material, including the separation of a small amount of plutonium. The IAEA, after a four-year engagement with Iran, still awaits a reply on three counts: the uranium contamination at the Physics Research Centre; Iran8217;s acquisition of P-1 and P-2 centrifuge technology; and the documentation concerning uranium metal and its casting into hemispheres.

The contamination issue emerged out of the enriched uranium particles beyond permissible limits found in the environmental samples taken from Iran. The clarification given by Iranians is that contamination is related to its imports and is not domestically generated. Procurement patterns are also not transparent, given Iran8217;s links to the Pakistan-based A.Q. Khan proliferation network. In January 2005, Iran provided to the IAEA a copy of a handwritten one-page document, reflecting on an earlier offer made to Iran in 1987 by a foreign intermediary concerning the possible supply of a disassembled centrifuge; drawings, specifications and calculations for a 8220;complete plant8221;; and materials for 2000 centrifuge machines.

The IAEA, in its September 2, 2005 report, raised the question as to why the P-1 design similar to those provided in 1987 was delivered again with the offer made in 1994. Again, despite the fact that Iran acknowledges that it received the P-2 design in 1995 and that around 13 official meetings took place with the Khan network between 1994 and 1999, Tehran denies that any delivery

relating to centrifuges took place after 1995. The IAEA refuses to believe the complete transparency of

this declaration.

Again, some of the other documents examined by the IAEA in Iran explain the procedural requirements for the reduction of UF-6 to metal in small quantities, and on the casting and machining of enriched, natural and depleted uranium metal into hemispherical forms. Westerners speculate that such information strongly points to Tehran8217;s weapon ambitions. These documents are treated circumstantially as part of offers provided by the Khan network to Iranian intermediaries. Tehran has clarified that these documents were 8220;provided on the initiative of the procurement network, and not at the request of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran8221;. This is an implicit attempt to distance the AEOI from questionable procurements.

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However, the unverified aspects of Iran8217;s nuclear programme reinforce the need for an appropriate examination into the extent of the Khan network8217;s connections with that country. This is a task that the international community should have undertaken long ago.

Even if Pakistan8217;s Foreign Office spokesperson categorically stated in May last year that 8220;we have shared our information on the A.Q. Khan network with the IAEA and other countries, including the United States8221;, neither the IAEA nor the US has made public the actual details. But the ironic fact is that even the US has not done enough to check the nuclear network although its intelligence agencies have been tracking Pakistan and Khan8217;s clandestine activities for more than two decades.

The writer is associate fellow, IDSA. Views are his own