 Okay, so just to complete the answer to any question, does Israel have any connections with the IAEA? First of all, remember, IAEA was established in 1957 before the MPT, I mean like 11, 12 or so years before MPT was sort of signed and ratification. Israel is a member of the IAEA just like Pakistan, India, India and Pakistan as well as Israel, they stay out of the MPT but they are members of the IAEA because IAEA is older than MPT. But if you ask the question, whether there is any inspection agreements between the IAEA and the Israeli Niktor facilities or Israeli government, no, there's no such thing. So Israeli Niktor facilities are not inspected by the IAEA, which is not possible because IAEA Israel is not a member of the MPT as a non-Niktor rapid state. All right. Well, I'm using this PowerPoint and whenever you have time, you can just click on this on my website and just go through. But I'm spending a little bit time about every aspect that are stated here, because it is not only about Iran's Niktor ambitions, it is something which is at the core of today's discussions with respect to the Middle East and also with respect to the rest of the world. So I mean, I am trying to use this as a template, whereby I can extend our discussion to many other issues here. So if we are slow in advancing in these slides, does that mean that we are spending too much time on Iran issue? But just look around you and what you see is discussion or talking about Iran only. Of course, with different aspects of the different dimensions of the problem. So I think we have said enough about why the United States is concerned about Iran's Niktor capabilities, because the United States, which is very much concerned about its security, of course, as well as the security of Israel, and knowing that Iran, at least from the perspective of Israel and the United States, is a challenge and threat to the Israeli security, the United States spends so much time in considering as to what to do with Iran's Niktor capabilities. So therefore, this issue is important and bearing in mind that we do not yet, as of today, have a clear picture of the Iranian Niktor capabilities. We can understand why the United States is concerned, because, well, even in its most recent report of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors stated that they cannot say exactly with confidence that Iran does not have the capability to produce Niktor weapons. Neither can they say that Iran produces Niktor weapons. They say we are not positioned to make any comment whether Iran develops Niktor weapons or doesn't have any intention or capability to do so. So, the situation is unclear and the lack of clarity is confirmed by the highest authority, the most objective or impartial authority, which is the IAEA. IAEA is a technical body, I mean, of course, it has not to be politicized and so far, at least to the extent that I can say, the director generals of the IAEA have done their best not to politicize the IAEA and not to be used as a tool to advance some of the arguments of some of the countries. And as we will see in the coming slides, neither the United States is happy with the IAEA's performance nor Iran. So, actually, this is a good sign. So, both sides are complaining about the IAEA, meaning that neither side is happy, meaning neither side is satisfied because both sides actually want IAEA to serve its own purpose and the IAEA tries to be impartial and for reasons that we will explain in a moment. The EU's position, which was back in 2006 when I used it, prepared a slide for this NATO school for the presentation, at that time, the EU's position was slightly. Indeed, when we look at some of the most recent statements made by the European leaders, significantly indeed different than what it is today. So, the EU actually agreed with the United States on that, I mean, that the Iran's capability is a threat. I mean, the EU never said Iran is not a threat at all, but they agreed on the sort of existence of a certain degree of threat, but they disagreed on the level or the imminence of the threat and also what to do with it or how to deal with it. So, the EU agreed with the United States on that, you know, Iran's capabilities are posing a certain threat and they also want, the EU also wants Iran to halt Iranian enrichment, to stop Iranian enrichment. They agree with the United States on this particular issue but they disagree, the EU disagrees with the United States on how to do it, on the ways and means of dealing with Iran. Again, at a quick look, then we will have more extensive and detailed discussions about each actor's position. Russia disagreed with the request of both the United States and the EU, which was the Iran's permanent stopping enrichment, but supported and also supported Iran's right under the NPT and Russia's position also changed a little bit, not significantly, not drastically or radically, but and I will explain also why Russia's position has changed, which in my personal opinion, and I have my reasons to believe this and I could write an op-ed on this subject and I've written something actually on the building of the atomic scientist, which is available on my website, as you might have seen already. Russia disagreed with the request of both the United States and the EU and supported Iran's right under the NPT. Well, after all, according to Russia, Iran is using its treaty rights and there is nothing wrong that can be proven as being wrong that Iran is doing. Of course, from the Israeli perspective, well, which is a country which takes its decisions based on its security, almost on all occasions, and among other things, they do not rule out the possibility of a military attack on Iranian facilities and Israel sees Iran as a clear challenge or threat to its vital interests as well as its existence and therefore they are concerned about Iran's advancing its capabilities and if the international community fails to stop Iran's advancement of its capabilities and developing nuclear weapons, Israel says we will take certain measures which might also include a military attack on the facilities in order to destroy these capabilities that Iran might develop nuclear weapons. Of course, here the position of the IAEA is that, I mean, the IAEA wants to do its job, which is to go to places, carry out inspections, have a clear picture of what the situation is and to write its report and come to a conclusion. But IAEA cannot verify the allegations of Iran's nuclear work but they cannot sort of also give or write a clean bill of health. They can neither say Iran is building a weapon nor can they say Iran is not building a weapon. So it's like an unmovic situation. Remember in Iraq, so 12, 84, et cetera, et cetera. So the positions of these actors in a very brief manner is like this. So let's start with Iran for more detailed discussion. Iran leaders say that they will never agree to permanent cessation of enrichment on the grounds of their Article 4 rights of the MPT. So that was actually the basic bargain. The first four articles of the MPT are the most important for at least your purposes because according to Article 1, nuclear weapon states promise not to give nuclear technology or weapons to non-nuclear weapon states. I mean, United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom, according to Article 1 of the MPT, they bound, they commit themselves not to give nuclear technology or nuclear weapons to other states. So let's say Article 1, nuclear weapon states, they will not give weapons to non-nuclear weapon states. And Article 2, of course, you should go and read these articles, which are available on the web. Just click on the Google MPT treaty or MPT text. You will get the full text of the MPT, or just the text must be available in some of the reading assignments that I gave for this course. And Article 2 says non-nuclear weapon states will not look for weapons. I mean, they will not even show any inclination to do so. They will not even express any desire to do so. So non-nuclear weapon states will remain non-nuclear. They will not pursue nuclear weapons. Article 3, there comes the IAEA into play, because states might make promises. But how can you make sure that states keep their promises? You need to have an impartial organization, which must be empowered with the capability to carry out inspections to write a report about what exactly the non-nuclear weapon states are doing with the capabilities that they develop either by themselves or by way of transfers from other countries. So the IAEA, remember, again, the model protocol and for some additional protocol, go to states, facilities, carry out inspections. And after these inspections, they will write a report about the standing, about the position of that state, whether there is anything that really makes them concerned about the true picture or if everything is clear. So it is essential that the IAEA give a clean bill of health, saying that, yes, I went to this country, according to the safeguards agreement that we have. Then I sort of spent so many days of inspections, so many man hours of inspections in this and that facilities. And I have found nothing wrong. And there is nothing wrong with this country. This is what the IAEA is looking for. But if the IAEA goes to a country, carries out inspections. And if it encounters with some difficulties in terms of fulfilling all these inspections or terminating these inspections, or if there are certain sort of material that are missing and there is no clear explanation by the authorities about the status of that material, then the IAEA writes a report like, well, we have carried out inspections in this and that facilities. There's nothing wrong here. There's nothing wrong there. But we are not sure about the status of this particular facility. And we need further clarifications, but the authorities have not provided this clarification. So this is the situation. Then the Board of Governors of the IAEA may ask from that country's authorities. It depends on the report that the IAEA must have written already and ask for further clarifications. And there is no further clarification coming from that state after the inspections, according to the point that was raised by the IAEA, then the Board of Governors might take the issue to the United Nations Security Council. So the IAEA itself does not deal with the country beyond a certain limit all by itself. Its task is to go to these countries, carry out inspections, find if something there is wrong, and give a clean bill of health if everything is fine, and raise some questions if there are certain questions to be raised. And then the Board of Governors takes control of the situation, asks for further clarification. If there is no clarification coming, the issue can be transferred to the UN Security Council. As has been the case in the case of Iran lately, not at the beginning. So this is the article, this article three. And article four, well of course, if you commit yourself not to produce weapons, and if you commit yourself to accept inspections, there must be something as a reward, something in return, which is expressed in article four, that is part of the bargain. You will be allowed to get nuclear technology transferred, and the IAEA will help you in getting this technology, or developing yourself by yourself this nuclear technology. So according to the Iranian leaders, the article four writes, I mean, are being used by Iran, nothing else is being done. So this is the official position of Iran. They say, we do not do anything wrong. And according to article four, we have the right Iranians, say, to enrich uranium and to repress plutonium. Well, Iran did not repress plutonium in large quantities. As far as I know, something that I discussed with the Iranian authorities when I was there in 2004, and possibly in 2005, they say that they had actually a German scientist had repossessed at a laboratory scale in one laboratory a minute quantity of plutonium, which is not significant for weapons purposes, but it is significant for demonstrating or developing your capability to repress plutonium, because it's a very complex process. It is something that requires advanced technology and scientific knowledge. And even if you do it at very low levels, or small quantities, well, it might not be significant for weapons development. We cannot develop nuclear weapons with 200 grams of plutonium. You need at least eight kilograms, seven, five kilograms, whatever, depending on your technological capabilities. But if you can do it for a small scale at low levels, I mean a small scale, then this is something that tells us, the world, that Iran might have at least the basic capability to repress plutonium. But what is more important than that in the Iranian case is the capability to enrich Iranian. As I just wrote here on the board, Iran had this Natanz facility, which may host 55,000 centrifuges. But at present, not all of them there. They have installed, according to different sources, there are different figures, they have installed something in between 6,000 to 8,000 centrifuges. And not all of them operate every day. And what I follow from the international community of scientists and think tanks, information that are supplied by these sources, of course, you cannot make sure about the veracity about the correctness of this information. But most people rely on these information, provided by some credible institutions. There is this information out that some 6,000 or 8,000 of them have been installed. And out of this amount, 4,000 or 5,000 of them are operating on a daily basis. And Iran is capable of producing something like 30 kilograms per, or three, sorry, three or four kilograms per day. Well, it depends, of course, if there's any enrichment. So, enrichment as well as repossessing are such technologies that are not prescribed by the MPT, that are allowed by the MPT, provided that enrichment and repossessing are used only and only for peaceful purposes. You might ask this question. Yes, we understand enrichment because you need low-enrich uranium, 3.5% uranium for nuclear reactors. What about plutonium? There are certain reactors, fast breeder reactors, such as the ones in Japan, which use plutonium as fuel. So, in order to run the nuclear reactor in Japan, almost all of them are plutonium-based reactors, some 50 plus of them. Fatih asked me during the break if Japan has the capability to produce nuclear weapons. Well, having the capability, of course, does not necessarily mean that they have the will, hopefully, to build a bomb. But there is this discussion in the international community that if a country has the capability, technological capability to build a bomb, it is a matter of political decision. And therefore, it's a matter of time for that country to develop weapons. Hopefully, at least at present time, and when we look back, there is no indication that Japan might even think of developing nuclear weapons. And if you say something like that, Japanese are really getting furious because they say they are the only victims of nuclear weapons in the world. And how can we think about Japan building nuclear weapons? But some people do not look at this emotional part of the issue and look at the capabilities. And if and when Japan decides to develop nuclear weapons, can they do so? And the answer is, unfortunately, yes, because Japan has the technological capability, scientific accumulation, plus more important than that, plutonium, which is much more than necessary for their 54, 55, whatever the number is, nuclear reactors. So, of course, Japan is most likely to remain peaceful for the foreseeable future. But there is this talk of what Japan might do in case United States withdraws its umbrella, which secured umbrella on top of Japan, and if North Korea develops further capabilities for nuclear weapons. And if the two Koreas, South and North Korea, are joining and then reuniting, and then they still keep their nuclear weapons, then Japan might consider developing nuclear weapons. So, therefore, it is a matter of intentions plus capabilities, plus capabilities. Japan has the infrastructure, the capability, of course, hopefully not the intention, but in the future. We don't know. Don't forget. Capabilities take time to develop. I mean, in order for a country to develop nuclear weapons capability, it might spend billions of dollars and tens of years. And, therefore, capabilities are taking time to develop, but intentions can change if not overnight, but in a very short time. So, therefore, you have to keep an eye on both the capabilities as well as intentions, and depending on which sort of a term you look at the situation. So, going back to the rights within, under the NPT, according to the NPT, non-nuclear weapons states, such as Iran, must not develop nuclear weapons, must open its facilities to the IAEA inspections, and in return for this, they can acquire technology by way of transfers from other countries or by way of indigenous development. So Iran says here, what I'm doing, enrichment, it is my inherent right, coming from the NPT's Article IV, and, therefore, I will never stop using my right, and, therefore, I will never agree to a permanent cessation of enrichment, because the West is concerned about Iran's enrichment capabilities, because once you are capable of enriching uranium from its natural levels, 0.7% to 3.5% for nuclear reactor use, then, actually, there are not many hurdles, I mean, there are not many obstacles in front of you to develop nuclear weapons, because once you have the technology and capacity or capability to enrich from natural level to 3.5% or 5%, you can enrich up to 90% for weapons purposes. So the West says Iran, by way of investing in enrichment, and also, not only this, but also doing this clandestinely, because from I-84 to 2002, Iran did not declare its enrichment facility to the IAEA, to the world, and this, they say, is an indication of their intentions that they are going to produce nuclear weapons in the future, this is what the West says. Iranians also say they will end cooperation with the IAEA if sanctions are imposed on Iran. Well, that was before the IAEA took the dossier, the file of Iran to the United Nations Security Council, because after the revelations of the Iranian opposition group, as I said, during the first hour, the director general of the IAEA gave this automaton to Iran to sign the additional protocol by the end of October, 2003, and by that time, three European countries, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, sent there four ministers to Tehran, and they sort of, they went to Tehran, talked with the Iranian officials, and Iran agreed to sign the additional protocol. That was either late October or early November, 2003. And then, they have not signed anything, everything was on promises, and Iran started to act after signing the additional protocol as if it was a party to the additional protocol. That is, as if the Majlis, the Iranian Majlis, the parliament, as if it had ratified the protocol and cooperated with the IAEA. And of course, in return for this, the EU-3, European Union-3 countries, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, they made some promises, economic, they provided some economic incentives, political incentives, encouragements. So there was a sort of a milder climate between Iran and the West. When I say West, I mean here, Europe, because the United States found that actually as a waste of time, consider this initiative of the EU as a waste of time, but actually, as we will discuss later on, it was also something that served the United States' interests because United States was not, or had not decided what to do and was not ready to do anything. So therefore, in the meantime, the European-3 kept Iran under certain control and imposed in a sort of acceptable level certain conditions on Iran such as to cooperate with the IAEA to the extent possible. So Iran and the IAEA have started a cooperation which was more than the model protocol, which is weak of the 1970s, but less than the additional protocol because it was not yet entered into force. If you want to sleep, you can go out, okay. So therefore, if you have headache, you don't have to stay here. You can go to the arms, okay. So this is something that Iranians said, I mean, they will cease cooperation. They will stop cooperating with the IAEA because after 2005, June elections, when Ahmadinejad came to power, and after having made some statements, you might remember, he said Zionism must be swept out of the surface of Earth, something like that. And of course, he said Zionism is not Israel, but actually there's not much difference between Zionism and Israel. So Israel saw this as a clear challenge, clear threat to its vital interests and existence. And European leaders also have seen this extreme statements as inimical to sort of Iran's relations with the West. So we have started to hear certain statements from the West, especially after Sarkozy came to power in France and Merkel came to power in Germany. They were much more concerned than their predecessors in France and Germany, as well as in the United Kingdom. So in some respects, the statements of Ahmadinejad frightened caused fear among European leaders because Hatemi, who was the predecessor of Ahmadinejad and who stayed as the Iranian president for eight years from 1997 to 2004, actually his stance was much more milder when compared to Ahmadinejad. And Ahmadinejad's statements came one after another, shortly after he assumed the presidency. I mean, he assumed office, he started as the president. So the European leaders were shocked and not, of course, only the Israelis but the Europeans themselves. And I heard many Israelis saying, well, Ahmadinejad could not have done a bigger favor if he were the president of Israel. So the statements that he made with respect to Israel actually convinced Europeans in such a way that the Israelis themselves could not convince them. So Israel was trying to explain to the Europeans, the EU tree in particular, that cooperating with Iran would not bring anything and that they would give or gain Iran some more time for developing their nuclear weapons but Europeans were not agreeing to that. So they said, or they were hopeful about the end result of the process that EU tree's initiative would prove successful, et cetera. So once Ahmadinejad made all these statements, European leaders said, well, maybe Iran is not the Iran that we think or maybe it is the Iran that the Israelis are telling us. So the Iranian situation or the perception of Iran started to change with these statements made by the Iranian president, Ahmadinejad and the Europeans position actually started to change slightly. So they started to talk about imposing sanctions because Iran, although was apparently seemingly cooperating with Iran, with the IAEA, Iran was not sort of agreeing to everything the European Union asked from Iran, one of which was the permanent cessation of enrichment. They never stopped enrichment fully except for some short period. So therefore, the United States on the one hand and the new European leaders on the other hand plus Russia for other reasons that I will explain have started to sort of increase the heat, the pressure on Iran to comply with some of the requirements or expectations of the international community. Otherwise, they threatened Iran with sanctions and Iran said in return if you are sort of going to threaten me with sanctions then I will end cooperation. So that was a stalemate. Then therefore the EU tree stopped its initiative and from mid-2005 until last year there was no actually substantial negotiations between the West or the EU and Iran. So actually there is another issue that we must state here, something that I also personally observed when I was in Iran or in other countries and especially in the Islamic countries, in the Gulf, in other parts of the world. What I have seen was the sort of the policy of Iran to mobilize as much support as possible especially among the Islamic nations. Of course they use this leverage, Islam as a leverage in advancing their position and of course they also benefited from the already existing anti-American feelings, anti-Israeli feelings, anti-Semitic feelings and therefore Iran used this sort of anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Israeli feelings among the Eastern world, Islamic world also in the non-aligned countries to sort of mobilize support for its own position in the international community, especially within the body of the United Nations. So and for instance, among other things in their relations with the non-aligned movement they promised the non-aligned countries as well as Turkey. I mean I know from my conversation with the Iranians and I also read in the press on papers during some of the visits of the Iranian high-ranking officials as well as Ahmadinejad himself that they offered cooperation in developing technology, nuclear technology in a cooperative manner. So Iran said to the, or told the non-aligned movement countries, look, you are not going to get nuclear technology from the West because they have this preferential treatment. They do give technology to the countries that they wish to give and they do not give to other countries and look what they do to me and if you support me and protect me against all these sanctions and everything I have advanced my capabilities and I can share this technology with you. So Iran in a sense promised technology transfer from Iran to non-aligned movement countries or Islamic countries if Iran would be supported by them. So as I just mentioned, anti-Americanism and anti-Israeli feelings played into the head of the Iranians. As you can see Iran wanted to become a potential nuclear supplier. Well, well in some respects this is true. Iran has developed, I mean is now building a heavy water reactor which is again an advanced technology. It is a small one but not that small and big enough for weapons production because for enough plutonium production which can be extracted by way of processing later on. They have developed enrichment technology based on the Pakistani design which was provided to Iran by the Abdul Qadir Khan, the Pakistani scientist. There are all these allegations and I believe I true. I have reasons to believe and I cannot say right in front of these cameras but so for the record at least I can tell you that this is true. So therefore these are the reasons or the leverages that Iran used in order to advance its position in the international community. Anti-Americanism, anti-Israeli feelings, Islamic states. Well actually this is also important. Non-aligned movement countries do not want Iran to give in to the pressures of the United States because if Iran I mean stops enriching Iranian or acts the way the West ask from Iran to do to act then non-aligned movement countries will see Iran as another example of Western imperialism. So they want Iran to defy all this pressure and to stand up against all this pressure. So therefore non-aligned movement countries support Iran in position or at least at the rhetorical level. So therefore they don't want Iran to be a bad precedent for them because if today Iran, which is a powerful country militarily, economically, politically and otherwise. So if Iran cannot stand up against all this pressure how could they stand up against these, stand against this pressure in the future? So they don't want Iran to set a bad precedent for selective mistreatment. Again as I said they see Iran as a potential supplier. So this is therefore important. The United States position we talked a little bit about it but again yes we know that United States considers Iran as a threat. I mean not only with all other military capabilities that Iran has but also and more specifically with the nuclear capability that Iran develops and a threat to its US interests, Israel as well as the Gulf region but in return for this I mean how to mitigate the threat or how to manage this situation. Their policy is what can be, this is something that is agreed upon by many scholars in the international community. It is what is called stick only policy. You might have heard this carrots and sticks and some people especially in the third world countries they don't want to hear this carrots and sticks. They say we are not rabbits, we are human beings so how can we be treated with sticks and carrots et cetera but carrots and sticks policy is a statement which is widely used in international literature, international relations literature. Carrots mean encouragement, incentives and sticks mean punishment. But the United States pursues no carrot and stick policy but rather stick only policy, something that I use in my articles as well. And the United States wants Iran to take certain steps before United States starts taking some steps that Iran expects from United States. So therefore it is not something like you do something now and I do something now and then next step we do some other things. No, United States says you do this and that and this and that and then I may consider doing or acting the way you expect from me to act. So therefore it is stick only policy and it doesn't take us anywhere. Of course the United States has limited economic and diplomatic leverage and faces difficulties in dealing with Iraq because United States does not have diplomatic relations and neither do they have any economic relations that we know. Well I underlined this part because after the first Gulf War that was a policy which was started with the Bush administration but right after the first Gulf War in 1991 at the end of 1991 there was this presidential elections in the United States and Clinton came to power. And one of the policies that the Clinton administration pursued was the encirclement policy. I mean they wanted Iran and Iraq not to advance their capabilities not to sort of earn lots of revenues from international trade. So which was called dual containment. Dual containment policy, I'm sorry this board market doesn't write anything, dual containment like containment of the Soviet Union by the United States right after the World War II. So dual containment in and containing Iran and Iraq together because they were seen as threats to the Middle East peace process which had already started between Arab nations and Israel. So Iran and Iraq which could provoke this Middle East peace process had to be contained by the Clinton administration. At that time in the early 1990s Iran's nuclear capabilities were of course concerned for the United States but not that much. The level of concern increased dramatically after the revelations about the clandestine enrichment facility in Natanz in 2002. And prior to that and prior to 2001 September 11 Iran's level of threat was always there but not as high as it is today. So the dual containment aimed at containing Iran and Iraq and prevent them from provoking anything that could disturb the Middle East peace process. And the United States imposed sanctions on Iran, imposed sanctions on its own companies and also asked from the European allies not to do trade with Iran and Iraq. But in the second half of the 1990s it was so learned or known by the international community that the second biggest trade partner of Iran actually was a group of American companies under the guise of or some other companies which were not directly of course making trade with Iran but using some partner companies or some sort of other techniques they were still doing business with Iran. And when European countries learned this they got furious because they had imposed sanctions or limitations on their own companies and asked from them not to do business with Iran but they have learned after some time that some large American companies were doing business behind the doors through some companies, parent companies or other companies some business with Iran. So therefore the United States policy of dual containment just collapsed. But today of course there is no such an indication to the extent that we know and the United States has therefore limited economic and diplomatic leverages and therefore United States does not have much common ground for Iran to discuss these issues. And this issue need to be further discussed and as I said at the beginning of the first hour I strongly recommend you to go over these slides we will discuss every single aspect here in detail extensively and we'll continue because with these slides we go here and there and expand the scope of discussion to cover the region, the Middle East and also the rest of the world. So this is something that can be used as a template. All right, I'll see you on Friday. Don't belate at 9.40 we'll start on Friday in the morning.