Memorandum submitted by Jenny Warren
This submission addresses two of the issues
which the Foreign Affairs Committee will examine in the course
of its inquiry into Britain's relations with Iran, with particular
reference to its nuclear programme: the extent of the progress
Iran has made on nuclear development; and the options open to
the international community in addressing the possibility of Iran
obtaining nuclear weapons, and the implications of these options
for . . . nuclear proliferation.
IRAN'S
NUCLEAR PROGRAMME
The UN's International Atomic Energy Authority
(IAEA) has a multilateral mandate under the NPT to verify and
monitor a member state's nuclear programme in order to prevent
any nuclear fuel being diverted away from peaceful uses such as
nuclear power generation to the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
Its policy-making Board of Governors is made up of the five Permanent
Members of the UN Security Council and 30 member states, which
serve for a period of two years.
In 1974, Iran signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) and its Safeguards Agreement, which grants IAEA inspectors
access to its nuclear-related sites, and called for the establishment
of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
The extent of the progress Iran has made on nuclear
development
Iran's nuclear power station
In 2002, Russia began construction of Iran's
first nuclear reactor for its civil power plant, which has been
monitored since then by IAEA inspectors. The reactor uses the
type of proliferation-proof nuclear fuel that is used in power
stations throughout the world, similar to the one that the United
States had agreed to build for North Korea in 1994. In March 2005,
Russia and Iran finalised an agreement to return the spent fuel
to Russia for reprocessing and storage (in compliance with the
Nunn-Lugar agreement between the United States and Russia). In
February 2006, Russia signed a 10-year contract to supply Iran
with nuclear fuel but, a year later in March 2007, stopped deliveries
(ostensibly because Iran was in arrears on its contractual payments),
thus delaying work scheduled for completion in September.
In September 2002, Iran invited all countries
attending the IAEA's annual conference to participate in its plan
to build more nuclear power stations. In April 2007, Iran's Atomic
Energy Organisation announced it was seeking bids to build two
more nuclear power stations.
Iran's nuclear programme
In September 2002, Iran informed the IAEA that
it had over the past 18 years pursued a programme to produce nuclear
fuel, which it had failed to declare under its NPT Safeguards
Agreement. The United States then accused Iran of developing a
nuclear weapons industry. The IAEA immediately started its investigation
of Iran's past and current nuclear programmes. Between June 2003
and May 2007, its Director General, Dr ElBaradei, presented 15
detailed technical reports on its inspectors' findings to its
Board of Governors. He began sending its reports and the Board's
resolutions direct to the UN Security Council when it first took
up the Iran nuclear issue in March 2006.
In February 2003, the IAEA's inspectors started
work in Iran, focussing in particular on its efforts to convert
and enrich uranium as a nuclear fuel and to produce plutonium.
In June, Iran proposed suspending its nuclear programme until
the IAEA had completed its investigations in return for help from
the European Union in developing its nuclear power industry. Initially,
Iran tried to conceal evidence from the inspectors but in October
granted them unrestricted access to all its nuclear-related sites
under the Additional Protocol to its NPT Safeguards Agreement.
Early on in their investigations, IAEA inspectors
discovered traces of weapons-grade nuclear fuel on equipment imported
from Pakistan and began investigating the A Q Khan proliferation
network that had supplied it. The IAEA continues to seek information
from the Pakistan government on this matter.
In November 2004, after nearly two years' inspections,
the IAEA issued a comprehensive report on Iran's past and current
nuclear programme. It concluded that there was no evidence to
show that Iran had either produced or imported weapons-grade nuclear
fuel. Iran suspended its nuclear fuel programme on a voluntary
basis, while negotiations proceeded with Britain, France and Germany,
together with the EU's foreign policy representative, on nuclear
and security issues. The IAEA continued to monitor Iran's nuclear
facilities on a routine basis and to investigate whether any undeclared
nuclear fuel had been diverted to the production of nuclear weapons.
In August 2005, however, Iran restarted its
uranium-conversion plant, and its uranium-enrichment plant in
January 2006; the rest of Iran's nuclear programme remains suspended.
In February, Iran ceased implementing the Additional Protocol,
which it had observed since October 2003. The IAEA continued to
monitor both plants as well as Iran's suspension of the rest of
its nuclear programme under its Safeguards Agreement.
Since February 2006, the IAEA has had only restricted
access to a "workshop" associated with Iran's defence
ministry where dual-use equipment that can be used in the civil
and conventional defence industries but also in the nuclear weapons
industry is installed. In this connection, it continues to seek
access to documents, individuals, "workshops", and a
research centre.
The IAEA still needs to reconstruct the history
and investigate the present scope and nature of Iran's nuclear
programme so that it can clarify some important issues relating
to Iran's nuclear programme and conclude that there are no undeclared
nuclear materials or activities in Iran.
Iran's nuclear capability
In March 2007, after four years' inspections,
Dr ElBaradei was able to confirm in his latest report to the IAEA
Board that Iran had not diverted any declared nuclear material
to developing nuclear weapons. It had not seen any proof that
Iran had diverted any undeclared nuclear material to developing
nuclear weapons. Nor had it seen any evidence that Iran had the
industrial capacity to produce weapons-grade nuclear fuel.
In an interview with the Financial Times the
month before this report, Dr ElBaradei noted that Iran had already
acquired considerable technical knowledge from enriching uranium
in a "research and development" facility but does not
yet have the industrial capacity to develop a nuclear bomb. Moreover,
as long as this facility remains under NPT safeguards, Iran is
restricted to producing the proliferation-proof type of nuclear
fuel. Both British and US military intelligence share the IAEA's
professional and impartial assessment that the difference between
acquiring knowledge and having a bomb is at least five to 10 years
away.
The options open to the international community
in addressing the possibility of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons,
and the implications of these options for . . . nuclear proliferation
UN Security Council policy
In January 2006, after Iran had restarted its
uranium-enrichment nuclear fuel programme, a group of six countries
comprising the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council—the
United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France—and Germany,
together with the European Commission's foreign policy representative,
took over the negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme between
Britain, France and Germany and Iran that had started in June
2003. In February, they decided to refer Iran to the UN Security
Council in view of its responsibility for maintaining international
peace and security.
In March, the Security Council began a debate
on the whole issue of non-proliferation "that will also benefit
nuclear non-proliferation elsewhere", developing its policy
towards Iran in three increasingly prescriptive resolutions.
In its July resolution, the Council included
Iran's ballistic missile programme as part of its nuclear programme
(as does the EU's "Strategy against Proliferation of Weapons
of Mass Destruction", December 2003).
In December, in a resolution sponsored by Britain,
France and Germany, the Council put the onus firmly on its member
states to enact measures to prevent any trade with Iran in nuclear
materiel, equipment, or technology, any technical assistance or
training, or any financial assistance for its "proliferation-sensitive"
nuclear fuel activities or for the development of nuclear missiles,
and to freeze the financial assets held abroad by named companies,
institutions, and senior officials involved in these nuclear and
missile programmes and restrict travel by senior officials to
their countries.
In effect, the Security Council had established
a template for counter-proliferation measures that is applicable
to all countries that fail to comply with the UN's nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty.
In an interview with CNN in January 2007, Dr
ElBaradei called for a simultaneous three-month "timeout"
whereby Iran would freeze its nuclear fuel programme while the
UN would suspend the sanctions it had imposed on Iran in its December
resolution.
In March 2007, the Security Council reinforced
its sanctions relating to the freezing of financial assets and
restrictions on travel. While exempting Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation,
which had been incorrectly included in December, it significantly
increased the number of companies (including Bank Sepah, Iran's
main commercial bank) and the number of senior officials, specifically
in both cases those associated with the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps, under sanction. (The resolution also called for vigilance
and restraint in exporting heavy weapons, as defined in the UN
Register on Conventional Arms, to Iran and decided that Iran should
not export such weapons.)
Iran has failed to comply with all three UN
Security Council resolutions.
In a statement made on behalf of the five Permanent
Members of the UN Security Council and Germany following the vote,
Britain's ambassador to the United Nations reiterated their full
support for the IAEA and stood by its "suspension for suspension"
timeout proposal. For the duration of negotiations, Iran would
maintain an IAEA-verified suspension and the Security Council
would suspend discussion of Iran's nuclear programme and would
also suspend the implementation of measures under the relevant
Council resolutions.
The Security Council's next session on Iran
is scheduled for 24 May 2007, unless Iran agrees to suspend all
its uranium enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including
research and development. However, a new round of talks on Iran's
nuclear programme between Iran and the five permanent UN Security
Council members and Germany has now been scheduled for 31 May.
Jenny Warren
16 May 2007
Sources
Sources listed in my written evidence to the
Foreign Affairs Committee, Iran and the Proliferation of Weapons
of Mass Destruction, 1 March 2005.
Financial Times cuttings, February 2005—May
2007.
Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement
in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Report by the Director General:
September, November 2005; February, April, June, August, November
2006. Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant
Provisions of Security Council Resolution 1737 (2006) in the Islamic
Republic of Iran, Report by the Director General, February 2007.
Developments in the Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement
in the Islamic Republic of Iran and Agency Verification of Iran's
Suspension of Enrichment-Related and Reprocessing Activities,
Update Brief by the Deputy Director General for Safeguards, 31
January 2006. Cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran
and the Agency in the light of United Nations Security Council
Resolution 1737 (2006), Report by the Director General, 9 February
2007. Transcript of the [IAEA] Director General's Interview on
Iran with Daniel Dombey, Financial Times, 19 February 2007.
IAEA Board of Governors Resolutions, September,
November 2003; March, June, September, November 2004; August,
September (non-unanimous) 2005; February (unanimous) 2006.
UN Security Council, Presidential Statement,
March 2006; Resolution 1696, July 2006; Resolution 1737, December
2006; Resolution 1747, March 2007.
FCO Country Profile—Iran, Foreign Office,
12 June 2006.
Foreign Policy Aspects of the War against Terrorism,
Chapter 7, Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Fourth Report of
Session 2005-06, 2 July 2006.
The Impact of Economic Sanctions, Lords Select
Committee on Economic Affairs, Second Report of Session 2006-07,
9 May 2007.
Iran's Strategic Weapons Programmes a net assessment,
Gary Samore (ed.), International Institute for Strategic Studies
(IISS), September 2005.
Iran's Weapons of Mass Destruction—the
Real and Potential Threat, Anthony H. Cordesman and Khalid R.
Al-Rodhan, The CSIS Press (Centre for Strategic and International
Studies), 2006.
Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, A. Q. Khan
and the rise of proliferation networks—a net assessment,
Mark Fitzpatrick (ed.), International Institute for Strategic
Studies (IISS), May 2007.
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