UN Nuke Agency Chief Says ‘More Work’ Needed on Iran Probe

Ahead of a Tuesday deadline, the chief negotiators of Iran, the United States and the European Union haggled for six hours on Thursday night until 3:00 am (0100 GMT), a senior USA official said.

She also referred to her support of legislation, which has since been signed into law, that will provide a period of 30 days for Congress to review any agreement between our current administration and the government of Iran.

The official was making a clear reference to Israel, a state widely presumed to maintain an undeclared nuclear arsenal. A better deal would force Iran to dismantle its entire nuclear infrastructure and live forever under the existing unprecedented monitoring and verification requirements; in short, terms that no sovereign nation would deign agree to. It’s the first time that Iran has acknowledged the potentially far-reaching powers of inspections since the country voluntarily implemented the Additional Protocol about 10 years ago.

The mooted accord would see Iran scale down its nuclear activities, which it says are for peaceful civilian purposes but which world powers worry may be used to develop nuclear weapons. If those constraints are too weak, Iran could be poised to move to industrial-scale uranium production when the accord expires, experts said.

The IAEA in 2011 released a major report on the “possible military dimensions” (PMD) of Iran’s programme, saying that the wealth of information made available to it was “credible”. At least part of the sanctions relief for Iran under any pact will depend on its full cooperation with the IAEA.

Still, the official said that initially the agreement would be carried out on a voluntary basis and that only later would Iran take it to the Parliament for formal implementation. Backed by the USA, the agency seeks pervasive oversight to ensure Tehran doesn’t cheat.

If the deal is good, however, the official said the Islamic Republic would have no need to revert back to its previous capacities.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in Vienna on July 2, “All parties are of the opinion that this matter will be resolved in the coming days”.

The United States is in retreat around the world and is perceived as weak by her enemies, including not only Iran, but Russian Federation, which continues its aggression toward Ukraine, and China, which is building new islands in disputed waters in the South China Sea, probably to be used as military bases.

But a senior Iranian negotiator on Thursday rejected any extraordinary inspection rules.

“The goal of the nuclear negotiations is not to rely on trust, but to set up a verifiable mechanism where we are cutting off the pathways for Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon”, Obama said.

“I don’t think we are at any kind of breakthrough moment yet”, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said as he arrived in the Austrian capital earlier.