MYTH:
Everyone should watch out for this spin: Since Iran "concealed" 18
years of nuclear development, then it can be stripped of its NPT
rights.
FACTS:
1- Iran's efforts to openly cooperate with the IAEA in the early 1980s
was thwarted by US pressure, and the same happened to every other
attempt by Iran to openly cooperate with other nations in nuclear
program:
"When Iran openly sought to develop the fuel
cycle and the IAEA was willing to help it, the U.S.
intervened to stop this. Whenever Tehran signed a
public agreement with an international partner,
Washington worked overtime to kill it.
Given this reality, the only way to build a fuel cycle
programme -- even if one's aims were purely peaceful --
would have been to go about it with stealth."
SOURCE: Siddharth Varadarajan
Associate Editor, The Hindu
http://svaradarajan.blogspot.com/
2- Iran wasn't required to disclose elements of its enrichment program
while the facilities were still 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. ... 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 and the
European Union at the March 2003 Board of Governors meeting."
http://svaradarajan.blogspot.com/2005/09/persian-puzzle-i-iran-and-invention-of.html
3- The IAEA has reported that whatever undisclosed nuclear program
existed in the past, there is no evidence that it was used for nuclear
programs, and that all fissile material in Iran had been accounted for.
And note that Iran isn't the only country that has been accused of
breaching is safeguards - several other countries including Egypt and
S, Korea were caught conducting weapons-related nuclear experiments.
The IAEA has system to remedy breaches, which has been applied to Iran.
4- Nothing in the NPT or Iran's Safeguards Agreement allows the US or
the UN to simply dismiss Iran's NPT rights as some sort of "punishment"
.
|
