Well, the government of Iran's side of the story - does anyone have a link to what Iran did report? The media suggests it was not a true report but I'd like to know the facts (yes, we all spin but this is important enough to get the truth):
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/09/200992653918859243.html
Iran's president has denied his government violated International Atomic Energy Agency rules after disclosing the existence of a new nuclear-enrichment facility to the UN watchdog.
Speaking in Tehran on Saturday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country had in fact informed the IAEA a full year in advance of the deadline set by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
"If you want to build the building, you can do that. If you want to lay the pipes, you can do that. Six months before you start processing itself ... then you need to inform the IAEA so it is prepared to begin its inspection programme," Ahmadinejad said.
"Now is this the right thing or the wrong thing to do?" he asked. "It is not a secret facility. If it was, why did we inform the IAEA a year ahead of time?"
6 comments:
I don't have a link handy but from what I've read there are two reporting requirements at issue.
The first, which Iran unilaterally repudiated some years ago, is that the IAEA be informed when the design stage is completed and the government approves the start of construction. None of the sources I've seen suggest that Iran complied with this.
The second is that the IAEA be notified again 180 days prior to nuclear material entering the facility and it's thought that this is the requirement Iran was meeting with the letter that the IAEA received on Monday.
So according to that, Iran is in contravention of one requirement. These aren't part of the NPT itself. Different countries have different side agreements and in some cases, as with Iran, the agreements aren't public so there is a fair bit of speculation going on.
And actually when I said that I don't have a link handy, the problem is really that I have too many. This is an interesting story to try and piece together. The bits and pieces are scattered all over the place.
If we paid half as much attention to the countries that are already in possession of illegal nuclear weapons (ie Pakistan, India and Israel) as we do to Iran, the world would be a better place.
For a balanced view of the middle east, here is the link you requested:
http://www.juancole.com/
Thanks
If Scott Ritter's explanation is correct than technically Iran isn't in violation of any reporting requirement regarding the Qom facility since the first requirement I described in my original comment wasn't legally binding.
Me again. Except that according to Plutonium Page at Daily Kos, Iran had no choice but to accept the modification to their Subsidiary Agreement that made that reporting requirement binding.
See what I mean? The bits and pieces are all over the place and still getting sorted out. And it's the British media, the alternative media and the blogs that are actually explaining the details.
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