February 14-2014
. . . seeks more
The International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA) says Iran has given it much of the information it wants—but by no means all that it wants.
Iran and the IAEA signed a new agreement Sunday in which Iran pledged to open up and provide information the IAEA wants in seven specific new areas by May 15.
Last November, Iran and the IAEA signed an agreement in which Iran promised information in six areas. IAEA Deputy Director General Tero Tapio Varjoranta told reporters Monday, “Since November, everything has gone as planned” and he called Iran’s cooperation “good.” But, he added, “There are still a lot of outstanding issues.”
In the agreement reached Sunday, Iran agreed to provide information on experiments with exploding bridge wire, a type of detonator the IAEA says can be used to trigger a nuclear weapon. This is the first time Iran has agreed to talk about work it has done on such nuclear triggers, an extremely sensitive topic.
Iran also said it would answer questions about work on laser enrichment. The IAEA wants to know how far Iran has gotten on ways to enrich uranium that do not involve centrifuges.
The new agreement pledges visits to Iran’s second uranium mine at Saghand (a visit to the first mine at Gachine was included in the first agreement) and to the plant in Ardakan where ore from Saghand is converted into a uranium oxide that can be fed into centrifuges. But the agreement does not include any visit to Parchin, where the IAEA has long wished to visit. The IAEA believes Iran ran some explosive tests on nuclear triggers there until 2003.
The agreement also does not allow the IAEA to interview any Iranian scientists working on the nuclear program. The IAEA has been seeking access to people, places and paper related to Iran’s nuclear program. It will get access to places and paper, but not to people.
The seven agreed points as described by the IAEA are:
• Providing mutually agreed relevant information and managed access to the Saghand mine in Yazd province;
• Providing mutually agreed relevant information and managed access to the Ardakan concentration plant;
• Submission of an updated Design Information Questionnaire (DIQ) for the IR-40 Reactor at Arak;
• Taking steps to agree with the agency on the conclusion of a Safeguards Approach for the IR-40 Reactor;
• Providing mutually agreed relevant information and arranging for a technical visit to the Lashkar Ab’ad Laser Center;
• Providing information on source material, which has not reached the composition and purity suitable for fuel fabrication or for being isotopically enriched, including imports of such material and on Iran’s extraction of uranium from phosphates; and
• Providing information and explanations for the agency to assess Iran’s stated need or application for the development of Exploding Bridge Wire detonators.