In the last three months of 2022, the protests in Iran were on the agenda and their possible effects on the regime were widely discussed. After the 1979 Revolution, it can be said that the protests, which lasted for the longest period, were also characterized by anti-regime sentiments, and that the political, economic and social policies of the current administration were the driving force of the social movements. In an environment where the official explanations regarding the poisoning incidents in schools, which started in the same period and are still ongoing, have not yet been satisfactory, recent developments regarding Iran’s nuclear program have once again become remarkable. In this article, Iran’s nuclear program and recent developments will be discussed as an unresolved security problem and the risk of proliferation will be evaluated within the framework of state (Iran) (US and European states) and international organization relations (IAEA).
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THE UNRESOLVED SECURITY CHALLENGE:
IRAN’S NUCLEAR
PROGRAM
ODAP Academic Advisor
Member of the Working Committee
Assoc. Dr. Ozilm Sezin. Uzun
March 10, 2023
In the last three months of 2022, the protests in Iran came to the fore and their possible effects on the regime were widely discussed. After the 1979 Revolution, the protests have lasted for the longest period, and it can be said that the anti-regime character of the protests has come to the fore, and the political, economic and social policies of the current administration have been the driving force of the social movements. In an environment where the official explanations regarding the poisoning incidents in schools, which started in the same period and are still ongoing, have not yet been satisfactory, recent developments regarding Iran’s nuclear program have once again attracted attention. In this article, Iran’s nuclear program and recent developments will be discussed as an unresolved security problem and the proliferation risk will be evaluated within the framework of state (Iran) (US and European states) and international organization relations (IAEA).
Inconclusive Nuclear Negotiations
In 1970, Iran ratified the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and opened its declared and authorized nuclear reactors to IAEA inspections. However, the Iranian nuclear program became an international and regional security issue on August 14, 2002, when the National Council of Resistance of Iran provided information about the uranium enrichment and Aranaki heavy water production facilities at Natanz and announced that these activities were being concealed by Iran. According to Iran’s official statements, its nuclear program is for civilian purposes and Iran conducts its uranium enrichment activities within the framework of the NPT. Since 2004, negotiations, first between Iran and the EU trio (the UK, France and Germany) and then with the P5+1 (the US, Russia, China, the UK, France and Germany), have not been successful for a long time due to a lack of mutual trust. During this period, the IAEA published several reports on Iran’s nuclear program, emphasizing the need for Iran to cooperate transparently on its nuclear activities and stating that there was no evidence of nuclear activities for military purposes. However, the unilateral economic and financial embargoes unilaterally imposed by the United States on Iran have continued, sometimes with the support of European states.” In 2015, the parties agreed on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which entered into force in 2016. Under this agreement, Western countries would suspend their economic and financial embargoes in exchange for Iran’s decision to halt uranium enrichment activities and destroy its stockpiles. With the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the deal in 2018, the parties have once again returned to the days of no trust between them.
Two Actors in Nuclear Non-Proliferation: The State and International Organization
Two important actors in non-proliferation policies are states and international organizations. The political and military motivations of states to acquire nuclear weapons need to be reduced, and international organizations and agreements need to be efficient and reliable.2 Given the increasing importance of nuclear energy and the hypocritical nature of nuclear technology, these two elements will also contribute to resolving the issues related to Iran’s nuclear program.
It is possible to see that the Iranian nuclear program=, which was restarted after the Iran-Iraq War, has been strengthened over the years with knowledge, people and infrastructure. As a member of the NPT, Iran’s official statements are that its nuclear activities are purely for civilian purposes and that uranium enrichment is a right granted to it by international law. The Iranian state does not want to cede its sovereignty in this regard to any international organization or state. On the other hand, the general perception that nuclear weapons provide military superiority and political bargaining power through their deterrence capacity carries the risk that Iran may also have the goal of achieving a military nuclear power. Therefore, limiting Iran’s nuclear ambitions for civilian purposes should be ensured within the framework of international organizations and agreements. In 2018, with the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the nuclear deal, this process was interrupted and the importance of the IAEA-Iran relations increased.
On November 27, 2020, the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, one of Iran’s leading nuclear scientists, triggered Iranian decision-makers to accelerate nuclear work. The Iranian Parliament passed the “Strategic Action Plan for the Lifting of Sanctions and the Protection of the Interests of the Iranian Nation” law, authorizing the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to enrich uranium by at least 20%. The law also announced that if the parties to the nuclear deal did not waive the embargoes on Iran’s banking and oil sectors, Iran could terminate the IAEA Additional Protocol, which Iran has voluntarily implemented since 2016, allowing IAEA inspectors to inspect Iran’s nuclear facilities at any time. It is true that after the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal, European states and Iran have not demonstrated a strong political will to keep the deal in place.
Despite the lack of mutual trust, relations between Iran and the IAEA continue. However, IAEA Director Rafael Grossi points out that Iran-IAEA relations have also declined over time. A few months after the law was passed by the Iranian parliament, IAEA Director Grossi traveled to Tehran and announced that after talks with Iranian officials, they had reached an agreement that the IAEA’s verification and monitoring activities would continue unrestricted for a period of time.3 Following this announcement, criticism of the Rouhani government increased in Iran and the Iranian parliament called on the Judiciary to take charge on the grounds that the agreement between President Rouhani and the IAEA was against the law. In the intervening two years, Iranian decision-makers seem determined to continue uranium enrichment activities. The US decision-makers who withdrew from the deal, on the other hand, have criticized Iranian domestic and foreign policy by declaring that nuclear talks are not on their agenda. In this context, political decisions on non-proliferation have not been taken.
There are also technical problems in the IAEA’s ongoing relations with Iran. IAEA Director Grossi has called for a deep and systematic dialogue with Iran. Complicating relations is the fact that Iranian decision-makers say that the IAEA is making political decisions and have stepped up efforts to obtain more and more enriched uranium faster in response to IAEA decisions. Over the last year, Iran has announced that it has begun enriching uranium to 60% at its Fordo facility. Iranian government spokesman Ali Rebii said that “so far, the amount of uranium enriched at 60% has reached about 6.5 kilograms, and the amount of uranium enriched at 20% has reached 10. 8 kilograms.” Although Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization spokesman, Behnız Kamalvandi, said the IAEA had been informed, leaks in early February revealed that the IAEA Board of Governors, in its quarterly report to member states, said that on January 21, IAEA inspectors had found that uranium enrichment activities at Iran’s underground Fordo facility were quite different from the previously declared configuration. This finding raised suspicions that the IAEA was seeking to enrich more uranium more quickly as part of Iran’s nuclear program. The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Islami, called the report “inaccurate” and said that the IAEA inspector had made a mistake.6 However, France, Germany, Britain, Russia, China and the United States believe that Iran’s uranium enrichment activities at the Fordo facilities pose a risk of nuclear proliferation without credible civilian justification. At the same time, Iranian explanations vary. According to some sources, Iranian officials have said that “unintended fluctuations” in uranium enrichment activities may have occurred during the transition period.7 Although Iranian officials stress that the stockpile of enriched uranium does not exceed 60%, the detection of uranium particles enriched to 87.5% has raised serious doubts about the nature of Iran’s nuclear program. This level should be interpreted as an indication that Iran is approaching the 90% level of uranium enrichment required to produce nuclear weapons.
All the criticisms and reservations about Iran’s uranium enrichment activities, which have increased in speed and quantity with a new generation of centrifuges, refer to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In the current situation, however, it is a matter of debate whether this nuclear deal is even still valid. As a first reaction to the US unilateral decision to withdraw from the deal and re-impose an economic embargo, the UK, France and Germany established a barter system with Iran covering the food and pharmaceutical sectors. With the imposition of oil sanctions by the US, the Trump administration decided to exempt some countries from oil sanctions for another six months, during which time European countries continued to import Iranian oil. In recent months, there has been an escalating crisis between European states and Iran over the Revolutionary Guards Organization and the Iranian government’s harsh policies against protests, and this escalating tension has led to a growing sentiment in European countries that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action should be abandoned altogether’.
Conclusion
Iran’s current nuclear program has become an intractable security challenge that could threaten regional and international security if it turns military in nature. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was an agreement that in the medium term had the prospect of providing oversight of Iran’s nuclear program and building mutual trust between the parties. Non-proliferation should be a priority in the ongoing relationship between the parties to this agreement, Iran and the IAEA. It is essential that Iran maintains a transparent relationship with the IAEA and facilitates inspections of its nuclear activities, including the alleged shutdown by Iran of IAEA inspection cameras at the Fordo facility. The IAEA should also strengthen the perception that its inspections of Iran’s nuclear program are not politicized and remain technical. Otherwise, a new-collar example will be added to the allegations that international organizations operate within the framework of the interests of powerful states and that they are unable to operate as partially independent institutions within the international system. The role of the IAEA and the N-PRN in nuclear non-proliferation cannot be denied, but the efficiency of these mechanisms, which were established in the Cold War dynamics, should be increased. If the impact of issues such as Iran-Russia relations and Iran’s harsh policies against protests on nuclear negotiations can be minimized, the start of negotiations with Iran on non-proliferation will contribute positively to regional and international security. However, given the current developments, all problems in Iran-EU relations have an impact on the nuclear negotiations, which in turn is reflected in the Iran-UAEA truce.
