Title: Iranian nuclear activities and interaction with the IAEA

Authors: A.A. Soltanieh

Addresses: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: The international community has been, to a great extent, misled with bias and exaggerated information regarding various dimensions of Iranian nuclear programmes and activities. In order to remove possible ambiguities which might still exist, the following legitimate questions on the nuclear crisis will be dealt with in this paper: How did the Iranian nuclear crisis begin? What was the role of the IAEA? Was there any legal ground and justification for the issue to be referred to the UN Security Council? Why did Iran voluntarily decide to suspend its enrichment activities? Is there any legal distinction between voluntary confidence building measures and safeguards obligations? Are uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities in contravention of the IAEA|s Statute, NPT, Comprehensive Safeguards and Additional Protocol? What level of uranium enrichment is permitted in accordance with the IAEA|s Comprehensive Safeguards and the Additional Protocol? Are there technically justified and reliable mechanisms to assure that the enrichment activities are exclusively for peaceful purposes? How was the crisis managed and controlled? What is the future perspective?

Keywords: nuclear energy; nuclear power; nuclear weapons; nuclear programmes; nuclear crisis; Iran; conversion; Natanz; Esfahan; Uranium Conversion Facility; UCF; uranium enrichment; uranium reprocessing; International Atomic Energy Agency; IAEA; Board of Governors; UK; Germany; France; Non-Proliferation Treaty; NPT; Comprehensive Safeguards; Additional Protocol.

DOI: 10.1504/AFP.2005.008368

Atoms for Peace: an International Journal, 2005 Vol.1 No.1, pp.95 - 108

Published online: 10 Dec 2005 *

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