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If Iran had its Additional Protocol in force

Everyone wants to know what the situation is at the nuclear facilities attacked by Israel and the U.S. Of primary interest is where the 60% and 20% enriched uranium cylinders are and whether some were destroyed and the material released to the environment. Of secondary interest is the status of the centrifuges, especially the advanced centrifuges at Fordow and at Natanz. 

When will Iran submit revised information to IAEA on the nuclear materials at the bombed nuclear facilities? When will Iran permit IAEA inspectors to visit the bombed nuclear facilities? Do the inspection arrangements before military attack remain valid? The IAEA inspectorate must be interacting with Iran on such questions. 

If Iran had its Additional Protocol (AP) in force, IAEA could request “Complementary Access,” the additional access provided by it. But would that help much in the current situation? 

The AP states that Iran shall provide the Agency with access to any place on a site. [AP, Article 5a.(i)], and the Agency may perform visual observation, item counting of nuclear material, non-destructive measurements and sampling, utilization of radiation detection and measurement devices, examination of records relevant to the quantities, origin and disposition of the material, collection of environmental samples; and other objective measures…agreed by the Board and following consultation between the Agency and Iran. [AP, Article 6b]. 

That sounds like the Agency would be able to determine a lot about the situations at the bombed facilities in the near future. 

But Iran does not have its AP is force. Iran stopped its provisional AP implementation under the JCPOA.

So here we have a solid case for why it is important that Iran adhere to the current NPT safeguards norm of a comprehensive safeguards agreement (CSA) and an Additional Protocol (AP). (More than 140 NPT States are so conforming.) The IAEA Director General repeatedly calls on Iran to put its AP in force, without effect to date. What is needed, in my view, is for NPT States, in the IAEA Board of Governors and outside it, to exert “maximum diplomatic pressure” on Iran to conform to the NPT safeguards norm now!

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