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Iran Treaty and Regime Issues

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IAEA Report: The IAEA report was prepared as a result of a series of visits to Iran by Dr. ElBaradei and other senior IAEA officials following allegations that Iran is completing two secret nuclear facilities -- a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy water production plant near Arak. The main source of concern in the IAEA report is "the number of failures by Iran to report the material, facilities and activities in question in a timely manner as it is obliged to do pursuant to its Safeguards Agreement." More detail

Statement by IAEA Board of Governors Chair: The Board of Governors Chairperson, Ambassador Nabeela Al-Mulla from Kuwait referred to the findings of the IAEA report on Iran in her summary of the meeting, thereby reflecting the Board's concern about the "number of Iran's past failures to report material, facilities and activities as required by its safeguards obligations." Significantly, the Chairperson recognized that the Board noted Iranian actions taken thus far to correct these failures, and urged Iran to promptly rectify all safeguards problems identified in the report and resolve questions that remain open. She also said that the Board "welcomed Iran's reaffirmed commitment to full transparency and expected Iran to grant the Agency all access deemed necessary by the Agency in order to create the necessary confidence in the international community." More detail

NPT: The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) embodies the international community's efforts to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons and its aspirations for global disarmament. The treaty also facilitates cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. For these reasons, the NPT is generally recognized as the foundation of the international nuclear nonproliferation regime. The treaty entails commitments by both nuclear-weapon states (China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom and the United States) and non-nuclear-weapon states (states who pledged not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons). Article III of the treaty requires all non-nuclear weapons states party to the treaty to place all nuclear materials in all peaceful nuclear activities within the territory of such states under IAEA safeguards in accordance with agreements with the IAEA. Such agreements are to be concluded with the IAEA, individually or together with other states, and enter into force within 18 months after a state's accession to the treaty. More detail

IAEA: The IAEA is responsible for verification of compliance with nonproliferation obligations of the states parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) through the application of safeguards. The Agency is entrusted to conduct independent inspections of all nuclear material and facilities subject to safeguards agreements in order to verify compliance with the NPT and other non-proliferation commitments. The IAEA Board of Governors is responsible for approving safeguards procedures and safeguards agreements, and for the general supervision of the Agency's safeguards activities. In case of non-compliance with safeguards, the Board of Governors of the IAEA is to call upon the violator to remedy such non-compliance and to report the non-compliance to the UN Security Council and General Assembly. More detail

IAEA Safeguards: All non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) parties to the NPT are obliged by the treaty to conclude comprehensive safeguard agreements with the Agency. Safeguards agreements are concluded on the basis of a document entitled "The Structure and Content of Agreements between the Agency and States Required in Connection with the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons" (INFCIRC/153). The safeguards system is a set of legal agreements between states and the IAEA pursuant to the commitments made in binding nonproliferation agreements, including the NPT and regional agreements such nuclear-weapon-free-zone treaties, by which the IAEA seeks to verify that a state is not using nuclear material or equipment to develop or produce nuclear weapons. Most are known as "full scope" or "comprehensive" agreements because they extend to all peaceful nuclear activities and nuclear material in a state. Under safeguards agreements, IAEA inspectors regularly visit nuclear facilities to verify records that state authorities keep on the whereabouts of nuclear material under their control, to check IAEA-installed instruments and surveillance equipment, and to confirm physical inventories of nuclear material. These and other safeguard measures provide independent, international verification that governments are abiding by their commitments with respect to the peaceful use of nuclear technology. A precondition for implementing safeguards in states is a formal agreement with the state in which the inspection is to occur. Since the IAEA is not a supranational organization with powers to impose its inspection on any state, acceptance of safeguards is a voluntary act. As of June 2003, of the 183 NNWS parties to the NPT, 135 parties have NPT safeguards agreements in force with the IAEA. Forty-eight states have yet to fulfill their legal obligations to bring such an agreement into force. More detail

Additional Protocol: An additional protocol is a voluntary additional agreement to provide a comprehensive picture of a state's nuclear and nuclear-related activities, including nuclear-related imports and exports. It requires a state to provide access to any place on a nuclear site and to other locations where nuclear material is, or may be present. The state is required to provide access to all locations that are, or could be, engaged in activities related to the nuclear fuel cycle and, in cases where such access may not be possible, to make every reasonable effort satisfy Agency requirements without delay through other means. The essence of the additional protocol is to reshape the IAEA's safeguards regime from a quantitative system focused on accounting for known quantities of materials and monitoring declared activities to a qualitative system gathering a comprehensive picture of a state's nuclear and nuclear-related activities, including nuclear-related imports and exports. The additional protocol also substantially expands the IAEA's ability to check for clandestine nuclear facilities by providing the Agency with authority to visit any facility -- declared or not -- to investigate questions or inconsistencies in a state's nuclear declarations. While 73 states have signed the additional protocol, only 35 of those states have to date brought the protocol into force. More detail


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