Deputy FM: Iran not to accept beyond additional protocol
Code: 81597071 (4637781) | Date: 06/05/2015 | Time: 01:33|

Tehran, May 6, IRNA – Deputy Foreign Minister and Iran's senior negotiator
Seyed Abbas Araqchi said that Iran has never accepted and will never accept
any inspection mechanism above the additional protocol.

'We have not accepted and will not accept any inspection system higher than
additional protocol and within the framework of interpretation from
additional protocol we will usher in confidence-building measures,' Araqchi
told IRIB in an interview in New York.

He noted that Iran has accepted to implement the additional protocol on the
condition that Majlis (the Iranian parliament) will also execute it;
therefore the final approval of additional protocol is not with the
government, but it is with the parliament.
'Additional protocol provides greated access and possibility for supervision
and confidence-building for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
and as said more than 100 countries are implementing the protocol at the
present,' Araqchi added.

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The 1997 IAEA Additional Protocol At a Glance

Fact Sheets & Briefs
Press Contacts: Kelsey Davenport, (202) 463-8270 x102
Updated: April 2015
http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/IAEAProtoco

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began an effort in 1993 to
better constrain NPT member-states' ability to illicitly pursue nuclear
weapons after secret nuclear weapons programs in Iraq and North Korea
exposed weaknesses in existing agency safeguards. That effort eventually
produced a voluntary Additional Protocol, designed to strengthen and expand
existing IAEA safeguards for verifying that non-nuclear-weapon
states-parties to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) only use nuclear
materials and facilities for peaceful purposes. The IAEA is responsible for
validating that NPT states-parties are complying with the treaty, which bars
all states except China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United
States from acquiring nuclear weapons. India, Israel, and Pakistan have not
joined the NPT and possess nuclear weapons.

Iraq, an NPT state-party, successfully circumvented IAEA safeguards by
exploiting the agency's system of confining its inspection and monitoring
activities to facilities or materials explicitly declared by each state in
its safeguards agreement with the agency. To close the "undeclared
facilities" loophole, the IAEA initiated a safeguards improvement plan known
as "Program 93+2." The plan's name reflected the fact that it was drafted in
1993 with the intention of being implemented in two years.

Putting "Program 93+2" into effect, however, took more time than expected,
and the program has subsequently been implemented in two parts. The IAEA,
within its existing authority, initiated the first part in January 1996.
This first step added new monitoring measures, such as environmental
sampling, no-notice inspections at key measurement points within declared
facilities, and remote monitoring and analysis. The second part of "Program
93+2" required a formal expansion of the agency's legal mandate in the form
of an additional protocol to be adopted by each NPT member to supplement its
existing IAEA safeguards agreement. The IAEA adopted a Model Additional
Protocol on May 15, 1997.

The Additional Protocol

The essence of the Additional Protocol is to reshape the IAEA's safeguards
regime from a quantitative system focused on accounting for known quantities
of materials and monitoring declared activities to a qualitative system
aimed at gathering a comprehensive picture of a state's nuclear and
nuclear-related activities, including all nuclear-related imports and
exports. The Additional Protocol also substantially expands the IAEA's
ability to check for clandestine nuclear facilities by providing the agency
with authority to visit any facility, declared or not, to investigate
questions about or inconsistencies in a state's nuclear declarations. NPT
states-parties are not required to adopt an additional protocol, although
the IAEA is urging all to do so.

The model protocol outlined four key changes that must be incorporated into
each NPT state-party's additional protocol.

-First, the amount and type of information that states will have to provide
to the IAEA is greatly expanded. In addition to the current requirement for
data about nuclear fuel and fuel-cycle activities, states will now have to
provide an "expanded declaration" on a broad array of nuclear-related
activities, such as "nuclear fuel cycle-related research and development
activities—not involving nuclear materials" and "the location, operational
status and the estimated annual production" of uranium mines and thorium
concentration plants. (Thorium can be processed to produce fissile material,
the key ingredient for nuclear weapons.) All trade in items on the Nuclear
Suppliers Group (NSG) trigger list will have to be reported to the IAEA as
well. The NSG is a group of 45 nuclear supplier countries that seeks to
voluntarily prevent the use of peaceful nuclear technology for military
purposes by restricting nuclear and nuclear-related exports.

-Second, the number and types of facilities that the IAEA will be able to
inspect and monitor is substantially increased beyond the previous level. In
order to resolve questions about or inconsistencies in the information a
state has provided on its nuclear activities, the new inspection regime
provides the IAEA with "complementary," or pre-approved, access to "any
location specified by the Agency," as well as all of the facilities
specified in the "expanded declaration." By negotiating an additional
protocol, states will, in effect, guarantee the IAEA access on short notice
to all of their declared and, if necessary, undeclared facilities in order
"to assure the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities."

-Third, the agency's ability to conduct short notice inspections is
augmented by streamlining the visa process for inspectors, who are
guaranteed to receive within one month's notice "appropriate multiple
entry/exit" visas that are valid for at least a year.

-Fourth, the Additional Protocol provides for the IAEA's right to use
environmental sampling during inspections at both declared and undeclared
sites. It further permits the use of environmental sampling over a wide area
rather than being confined to specific facilities.

Status

The United States signed an additional protocol to its IAEA safeguards
agreement in 1998 and the Senate provided its advice and consent to ratify
it in March 2004. The Senate, however, conditioned its consent to
ratification on the president certifying that appropriate managed access
procedures for international inspections are in force. Such procedures are
supposed to lessen the danger that inspection may compromise information of
“direct national security significance.” Following a lengthy inter-agency
process to provide such certifications, the U.S. additional protocol entered
into force Jan. 6, 2009.

The United States, along with the IAEA and the Security Council, has called
on Iran to resume voluntary implementation of and ratify its additional
protocol, which it signed in December 2003, after Tehran stopped adhering to
the measure in February 2006. Iran stopped applying the measure days after
the IAEA referred it to the UN Security Council. Iran agreed to implement
and eventually ratify its additional protocol as part of a comprehensive
nuclear deal it is negotiating with the five permanent members of the UN
Security Council and Germany. The parties set a June 30, 2015 deadline for
reaching an agreement.

As of December 2014, 124 NPT states-parties have concluded additional
protocols that are now in force. India, a non-NPT state party also concluded
an additional protocol with the IAEA, which was ratified in July 2014.
Another 23 states-parties have additional protocols approved by the agency's
Board of Governors, of which 21 have been signed by the states. For details
on the entire list of countries see the IAEA Web site here.

Posted: February 4, 2014