Iran nuclear deal means world may never know extent of its weapons program

Special to WorldTribune.com

The full extent to which Iran pursued nuclear weapons technology may never be known after the United Nations nuclear agency on Dec. 15 closed its investigation of Teheran’s program.

As part of the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreed to formally end the investigation.

Iranian IAEA delegate Reza Najafi
Iranian IAEA delegate Reza Najafi

A resolution was approved by consensus of the 35-nation board of the IAEA even though director Yukiya Amano told the board his investigation couldn’t “reconstruct all the details of activities conducted by Iran in the past.”

Amano said in November that Iran’s work on “a range of activities relevant” to making nuclear weapons continued until at least 2009.

Iranian IAEA delegate Reza Najafi trotted out Teheran’s usual denial of a nuclear weapons program, saying the Islamic republic’s nuclear activities “have always been for peaceful civilian or conventional military uses.”

Najafi hailed the closure of the IAEA’s investigation as an “historic day” that opens the path to closer cooperation both with the agency and its member nations and boasted that Iran could meet its obligations under that agreement within “two or three weeks.”

Most individual and international sanctions imposed on Iran will be lifted once the IAEA confirms Iran’s compliance.

Critics believe that concerns in the U.S. and among its allies that Iran worked to develop components of a nuclear weapon were overridden by U.S. President Barack Obama’s insistence on implementing the nuclear deal.

U.S. IAEA delegate Henry S. Ensher said the agency could again be called upon to investigate Iran, noting that the closure of the investigation doesn’t prevent following up on “any new concerns regarding weaponization.”

“Nothing has changed,” said Israel’s IAEA delegate, Merav Zafary-Odiz. “All the indicators for the existence of a clandestine nuclear weapons development program in Iran … are still valid.”

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