A forthcoming report from the International Atomic Energy Agency has stoked concerns that Iran is hiding illicit nuclear activity, according to government officials familiar with the agency’s still-unpublished assessment.
“We read this language to mean Iran is hiding something from the IAEA that is relevant to its Comprehensive Safeguards agreement, which usually means undeclared nuclear material,” a senior official with one of the nations on the IAEA Board of Governors told the Washington Examiner.
That suggestion arose from the nuclear watchdog’s latest report on Tehran’s nuclear program, which leading European nations believe was defused by the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. But inspectors issued an unusual signal that the regime has stymied recent attempts to investigate potentially illicit behavior.
“Ongoing interactions between the Agency and Iran relating to Iran’s implementation of its Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol require full and timely cooperation by Iran,” the IAEA observed in the report, which was distributed confidentially to the 35 nations that sit on the agency’s board, according to the senior official. “The Agency continues to pursue this objective with Iran.”
The agency also reported that Iran is continuing to stockpile enriched uranium beyond the levels permitted by the 2015 deal. The regime began public breaches of the agreement in July, in response to the tightening of sanctions that President Trump renewed when he withdrew the United States from the pact in defiance of objections from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
“They’re trying to force America to come back to the [2015 nuclear deal],” Behnam Ben Taleblu, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Examiner. “The challenge for them is, can they escalate sufficiently to frighten America without actually driving Europe into America’s hands?”
That tactical transparency has a limit, to judge from the the watchdog agency’s complaint, which was first reported by Reuters. The report doesn’t detail the exact issue that spurred the monitors to call for Iran’s “full and timely cooperation,” but the document comes in the wake of Israeli officials leaking that IAEA officials had found “evidence of illicit nuclear activity” at a secret warehouse discovered when Israeli intelligence officers stole a massive trove of Iranian nuclear documents from Tehran.
“The IAEA submitted questions to the Iranians that the Iranians have not addressed,” a U.S. government source familiar with the agency’s efforts told the Washington Examiner.
The latest report is sure to stir the transatlantic debate over how to restrain the regime’s nuclear program and regional aggression without sparking an immediate crisis.
“The question all nations must ask is: What is Iran hiding from the IAEA that would prompt this insertion into the report?” the senior official with one of the countries on the IAEA board said.
