 All right, welcome back. Is there any question that you may have in mind? Just anything unclear? Anything that I may have not mentioned enough or explained in detail with respect to the first hour? Or any suggestions? Everything's fine. Clearly understood. All right. And also you took note of this possible final exam question, right? Well, it can come in different forms. Okay, so pay attention to the differences between the model protocol and the additional protocol and why it is important to have Iran ratify the additional protocol, for instance, or any country, not only Iran. Well, these are available on the website of the IAEA and also available in hard copies in my office. So maybe I should have brought copies. Actually, these are, the model protocol is called Blue Book. It is a tiny blue book booklet and the additional protocol is thicker because it incorporates many more elements in much more detail. So both of them are blue. These are information circulars in-circ. These are institutional intra-agency sort of codification system, information circle of 153 and 540. So these are available on the website and if you just Google model protocol IAEA, something like that with keyword, you will most possibly get a PDF or the text of the model protocol and additional protocol. Actually, having mentioned this much, the additional protocol, I would like to emphasize something that I emphasized back in the late 1990s before Turkey ratified it, signed and ratified in 2001. The additional protocol is significant because it allows the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to carry out inspections by visiting any facility that they would consider would be important for having an idea as to whether there is anything wrong, anything suspicious about the activities of that particular country. So actually the summary of what I said was the IAEA has now the authority to go and visit any facility they believe it is important for them. Well, of course it's not in such a straightforward manner but it comes down to this point because in the text of the additional protocol, if I'm not mistaken, it is article 5. There are these paragraphs, article 5, paragraph AB, this and that or 1, 2 with small italics. It says if, well, the IAEA will visit facilities and there is of course a part at the end of the document defining what exactly it is meant by certain terms such as facility. So a facility is something that houses, that incorporates such and such amount of such and such nuclear or related material. So there is all these definitions about what kind of facilities might be of interest to the IAEA. But there is at some point in article 5, paragraph B, I mean I just very oblique to remember from my report, my letter that I wrote to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs by my own initiative, not just because it was asked but I took my academic and citizenship responsibility and wrote that letter. It says any other facility other than the ones mentioned above, which literally means anything. Because when this document was started to be actually prepared back in 1993 under the name of program 93 plus 2, it was a study that was envisaged to start in 1993 and finish in 1995. But it took a little bit longer and in 96, 97 the study was still being carried on. And if I'm not mistaken, it was in March 1998 I attended a conference. And in that conference there was a person who was in charge of this study, this document. And this document was distributed for the first time for our sort of examination. And I went through the document very quickly during this deliberations in the one or two days or maybe three days conference. And at some point I spotted that there was this almost unconditional freedom for the IAEA to go and visit any single building in any country. And then I asked to that person who was in charge of this as to whether this clause, this specific paragraph, would indeed give the IAEA the permission, the authority to visit, for instance, at the Turks Museum. Well, she was a lady and she was, what kind of question is this? I said, look, say today Turkey and the IAEA and the Western world all have very good relations. And what if in 10, 15 years from today there are strong suspicions about, you know, rumors about Turkey doing certain things wrong and the IAEA wants to make sure there is nothing wrong or wants to sort of see if there is any secret sort of activity. And then somebody spread the rumor that there was indeed a certain amount of plutonium hidden in Ataturk's museum. Would this give the permission to the IAEA to visit this place? She said, theoretically, yes. I said, look, I mean this is something that will touch the nerves, the very nerves of the Turkish people and that will aggravate the situation. I mean should the IAEA or have the authority to visit such places even. So this document actually, depending on how you interpret it and how the agency would interpret or how the international community would interpret it, can give the permission to the IAEA almost the utmost liberty, freedom to visit any place. And then, of course, I suggested to the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs by writing a memo, just an official letter or something. I don't know how many pages I keep in my computer back in 1999 I guess or 98 after this discussion with the person in charge of the document and said, well, as you know, I always support Turkey providing more transparency to the world and that Turkey should become a member of the Niktur Suppliers Group, the Zangir Committee, that Turkey should sign up with the additional protocol. But having this protocol out now, the text of it, there is such and such paragraph in article 5, paragraph 5 or AB, whatever. I can't remember exactly now, I have to check this. And this may be, of course, I'm not a legal expert who would say this with most precision, but my interpretation and my understanding based on my observations and my conversations that this may become a problematic issue. So Turkey should put a reservation in its acceptance and ratification of the additional protocol that such and such sensitivities will not be, will be observed and that the freedoms or the authority of the IAEA will not be exploited for purpose other than really revealing any secret thing if there is any. So diplomats seem to be convinced that Turkey, the parliament, as far as I remember, the necessary authorities have signed and ratified without any reservation. And I hope this issue will never become a headache for Turkey in the future. Of course, provided that Turkey doesn't do anything, which is the case today, I mean, Turkey is standing with respect to nuclear non-proliferation and other non-proliferation regimes elements, the treaties, conventions and all these agreements, protocols, procedures, Turkey is in a very good standing. Still, there are certain concerns, as we will discuss later on, with respect to whether Turkey could or would like to build its own atomic bomb because Iran, you know, has this and that program or whether Turkey would be inclined to do this and that. I'm having very difficult times, sometimes in convincing our, especially the Western allies, United States, Europeans, who express their views, their concerns about future potential Turkish policy if and when Iran develops its weapons, nuclear weapons capability. And what I'm telling them, as I always say here and also written in articles as well as in private conversations, is exactly the same thing, is that Turkey at least for the foreseeable future, today's generation, I mean, those who are in power in the government, in the military circles, I mean, the Turkish General Staff, the diplomats, academics, some of whom I know, and the bureaucracy, they may have in their own individual capacity different views about whether Turkey should or should not have nuclear weapons. But as part of institutional discipline, and as part of Turkey's foreign policy principle, Turkey with this current situation at this time for the foreseeable future, which means like 10 or so years at the least, will not, even if Iran develops nuclear weapons, Turkey will not go down the same path, down the same road, because today's generation of executives in the government, in the military, in the diplomatic and bureaucratic circles, they are quite aware of the very negative consequences of doing the same, of violating treaty obligations, and that will be a very costly thing for Turkey. And it is not in Turkey's state tradition to do things in secret, especially in terms of violating its treaty obligations. So, but still, they have a very lump sum view, and they see the entire Middle Eastern countries, including Turkey, as if they would all together would go on nuclear if Iran develops nuclear weapons. And then I say, look, if you have such concerns, then, and if you believe Iran is definitely going to build a weapon, then your task is to find ways to stop Iran's nuclear military ambitions. So, of course, provided that they are not military ways of means, because this is not going to bring anything better than the current situation. So, having said this and made this remark, let's move on to the attitude of Russia with respect to Iran's nuclear program, because Russia is one of the key, and if you ask me, is the key actor other than Iran, of course, itself, who may have this ability to put an end to this confrontation? Because it has much bigger influence on Iran, not necessarily politically, because Iranians, I don't believe, they are very happy politically speaking with Russia's position, or they don't seem to like the Russians very much in terms of the, or they do not necessarily appreciate them. But Russia has many instruments that may potentially create much bigger obstacles for Iran from diverting its capabilities from peaceful to metric. Actually, Russia came into the picture with this contract. The deal was struck back in 1992, but the contract was signed in 1995. And how did Russia come into the picture? Because in the past, we, I mean, before 1991, December, there was the Soviet Union. And throughout the 1980s, after the Islamic Revolution, just to remind you, refresh your minds, Iran actually knocked on every single door of every single country, which they believe or they hope would complete the unfinished nuclear projects unfinished by the Germans and the French. They knocked on the doors of the European countries, Latin American countries, Argentina, Brazil, and also Pakistan, India, all of them, and also Sweden, others. And first and foremost, of course, French and the Germans asking them to finish the job. And then under the pressure of the United States, none of these countries actually was willing to finish the job. Not possibly because of the U.S. pressure, but for other reasons as well. I'm not going to go into this data, and this is not important. It's not relevant that much at this point. And then at some point, I think it was back in 1989, when Arfsun Jani and Gorbachev had this meeting. And Gorbachev, in principle, agreed to finish the Bushin reactor, which was left unfinished by the Germans for KW and Siemens. So then came, of course, this Russian revolution, if it could be called a revolution, and Yeltsin came to power. And of course, Gorbachev was in the position to help himself, let alone help Iran in the nuclear project. So then after this whole change in the Soviet Union, of course the collapse of the Soviet Union, Iran resumed talks with the Russians this time in early 1992. And then there was this agreement in principle. And then in 1995, January 8, 1995, the deal was signed in Tehran during the visit of the person who was in charge of nuclear energy in Russia during his visit to Tehran. So then Russia came into the picture right to the core of the picture, to the center of the picture. One of the motivations for Russia might have been this need for hard currency, because when the Soviet Union collapsed, there was a chaos, economic, political, social, almost in every field. And one of the things that actually were missing was hard currency, cash, money. And the Russians expected to earn something like, some people say $800 million, some people say $1 billion. So for finishing the job in Bush Air, instead of two German reactors, Russians agreed to install two Russian reactors of different type and that would require demolishing of some parts and reconstructing some other parts. So it was obvious that the construction of the Bush Air reactor under the Russian project would take much long time. Russians promised to finish in the year 2000. And look where we are now. They just finished this year, 2010, with some 10 years of delay. Of course, much of the delay, in my opinion, emanated from this political controversy, not from technical or financial issues like some people would assert. This is not the situation. Yes, there were some technical problems, there were some financial issues, problems related to who would provide the fuel for how long and who would sort of deal with the nuclear waste. These were issues that necessitated further negotiations between Iranians and the Russians. But the most important issue for someone like me who follows the issue for the last 15 years, almost on a daily basis, I would tell you with great confidence that much of the issue was political. And political because the United States and Russia, of course, have very strategic relations from a very higher level. So, of course, the United States told Russia on many occasions not to complete the job, not to finish the Bush Air project. And even if they wanted to do so, not to help the Russians, the Iranian scholars, students who would go to Russian institutions for earning their PhD degrees. So, the United States wanted to put pressure on Russia just like they tried to do on the Europeans. But vis-à-vis Russia, the United States did have much less, actually, both in number and also in substance, leverages. Because while on the one hand, Russia would have a much bigger, much important role in Iran's nuclearization, but on the other hand, the United States needed Russia not only in the Iran's issue, Iran's nuclear program issue, because the United States needed Russia, especially for the Non-Lugar program. The Non-Lugar program, I think I mentioned this very briefly here once, is something that aimed at controlling the situation in the former Soviet territory. Because in the former Soviet landscape, in the former Soviet republics, there were many nuclear weapons, especially in basically in four republics, Russian Federation being one of them. And of course, also Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. And there were large amounts of chemical weapons, chemical substances that could be weaponized, biological weapons and biological agents that could be weaponized, lots of technical parts, technological parts and material, and thousands of scientist technicians who were involved in the weapons of mass production, manufacturing of these weapons. So the lack of control, lack of centralized authority on top of these republics created a lot of concerns in the United States, because everybody knew and primarily the US intelligence agencies knew very well that some countries which were of great concern to the United States, such as Iran, such as Libya, such as Iraq, even under sanctions after the First Gulf War, such as North Korea and others, were in search of weapons or weaponizable material and scientists, technological parts, whatever. And there were many incidents of smuggling of nuclear material, chemical, biological agents, technological parts and also scientists. So the United States aimed at containing the situation by creating some sort of a framework of cooperation between Russia and the United States. And this cooperative framework was a cooperative trade reduction program known after the name of Semnan and Richard Luger, the two senators from the US Senate. Richard Luger is still a senator and Semnan is retired already. So this now Luger program went all through the 1990s and still, of course, is effective under different names, global partnership programs, something like that. And it actually helped the United States as well as Russian authorities contain this spread of material, technology and weapons outside of the former Soviet republics. So that was the biggest and maybe the most important concern of the United States and therefore the United States wanted to continue in cooperation with Russia. So therefore it could not put pressure on Russia beyond a certain limit because it was essential for the United States that Russia cooperate. If Russia did not cooperate, yes, of course Russia itself might have been negatively affected from that but the United States thought it would itself be much more negatively affected. So therefore US leverages against Russia over limited as it is here mentioned, Russia's cooperation in the context of cooperative trade reduction initiative is essential for them, for the US and thus Russia cannot be priced beyond a certain limit to stop its cooperation with Iran. So of course again in the early 1990s because the trauma of the solution of the Soviet Union was something to stay there for quite a while. I mean it did not go anywhere overnight and all throughout the 1990s until Putin came to power and acted as someone who again mobilized the masses around himself and gave them this morale to stand up and act again as a big power, superpower, etc. Well of course that has coincided not only with Putin's coming to power but he was a lucky person in the sense that the oil prices have gone up in a skyrocketed fashion, I don't know, maybe ten-folds. So Russia being the biggest supplier of natural gas and oil made tens of times of much earnings and therefore then the previous decade and then in the 2000s Russia was much better off economically and therefore politically and of course under Putin's sort of statements, state's craft the Russian polity, I mean the administration acted in a different way but throughout the 1990s Russia was of course a country with thousands of Nectarepis which had this deterrence against potential enemies, actual enemies, rivals and therefore back in 1992-93 they have revised their meter doctrine and they have in a sense scrapped their former no first use policy which was not to use Nectarepis until the enemy used Nectarepis and then this time they said the exact opposite and said even in the smallest conflict that may damage our interests and not only in Russian Federation but also in our immediate neighborhood the former Soviet landscape implied that, did not necessarily put it that way but they implied that if somebody else from outside meddled in the former Soviet publics Russia's response would be with Nectarepis and they have revised their meter doctrine and they pronounce this near abroad doctrine which actually according to some analysts and I tend to agree with it it was against, not against the Europeans or Americans but against Turkey because in the early 1990s Turkey was seen as spare heading into the former Soviet landscape seen from us as Turkic or Turkish world or the world of Turkish publics so therefore Russia was feeling very uneasy about the situation and Turkey was not the only actor which could make things complicated from the perspective of Russia, Iran was the other one and Iran especially with its influence on Tajikistan and some other republics also Azerbaijan because of this Shia connection Russia thought Turkey and Iran had to be somehow contained somehow kept outside of the picture so that they should not make things complicated so this is my personal opinion, people might agree or disagree but I have very good reasons to believe that that was the situation and with the Nectare deal Russia gained the leverage in its relations with Iran to control its ambitions to explore revolution to Muslim Central Asia republics because Russia feared that Iran and that was actually a situation which was not only spotted not only observed by Russia itself I might have mentioned this briefly earlier United States and Europe actually provided incentives as well as encouraged Turkey to act as a model, as a big brother for the Central Asian and Caucasian republics of former Soviet Union so as not to leave the ground to Iran because Iran with its fundamentalist regime from the perspective of the Europeans and Western countries United States would not be the preferred model but of course these republics could very well fall into the influence under the influence of Iran so Turkey was provided encouragement by the West and therefore much of the impetus came not only from within Turkey to resuscitate our historic ties with the Central Asian and the Caucasus but also came from outside from the West so the near abroad doctrine in a sense was taught to deter ambitions of Turkey and Iran and also with the Nectare deal that Russia promised Iran to finish the Nectare project of course it had this leverage to use against Iran's possible ambitions so in a sense Russia gave Iran Nectare technology and in return for its promise not to do anything wrong that would damage Russia's interest in Central Asian republics so this is something that must be borne in mind again before going on with Russia let's have a look at the situation Russia is important in the sense that first and foremost it is a member of P5 it is a country with veto power and without whose consent of course together with the consent of all other veto powers no decision can be taken against Iran especially no decision to carry out a military operation and Russia from the beginning said this quite openly and explicitly and equivocally without leaving any room for misunderstanding that it would never ever agree to a military operation against Iran or its facilities I mean not only facilities but just some other show of force or whatever and that the whole question must be resolved diplomatically and well of course it is something that you would expect from Russia because it is the main supplier of Nectare technology for the time being for Iran and it is not going to stop there because Iran has projects to build again just like Shah had back in the 1970s today's Iranian leaders and bureaucrats mentioned from time to time that they have this project still on their minds and that they will go ahead sort of finishing the job and that they will have maybe 15-20 or so reactors by certain time like in the next 15-20 years and Russia is more than willing to sell many more reactors other than the one that they just finished in Boucher and it's just the first reactor and Russia has plans to sell six or seven other reactors and maybe even more and not only reactors but also some other facilities so therefore how could Russia on the one hand sell one reactor or construct one reactor and be a candidate for future reactors and on the other hand impose sanctions that would prevent itself from selling this reactor so therefore Russia thought of its own from its own perspective and said look I am with the US up to a certain point because I don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons yes Iran with nuclear weapons would not cause a big damage to Russian interests but of course that would be the beginning of some problems between Russia and Iran so therefore Iran without nuclear weapons is in the interest of Russia because there are still some Islamic or Muslim communities in today's Russia some autonomous regions and some groups which might turn their face to Iran with nuclear weapons so therefore Russia is concerned about that and in the final analysis it is not in Russia's interest to have Iran with nuclear weapons but of course Russia has to sort of work on a very tight rope it's something they have to strike a very delicate deal while on the one hand being the supplier of technology and also wanting to supply more in the future but on that hand prevent Iran from diverting this technology from peaceful to military and impose sanctions up to certain limit that would not damage Russia's own interests but also prevent Iran from again getting military capabilities so it's a very complicated thing but Russian diplomats are quite skilled diplomats they so far have found ways of pursuing their own interests but lately things have changed a little bit and the Russia's sort of tone of its voice has just increased became much louder and a little bit tougher and this in my opinion based on my conversations and my observations because based on the most recent discussions between Iranians and the Russians last year about this time or autumn or just late summer autumn Russia and Iran discussed this what is now known as the swap deal the swap deal as I explained a little bit a few times here for Iran which had back then in last year about a year ago they had produced 1200 kilograms of low-energy uranium which cannot be used in weapons for weapons production you have to have more than 90 percent energy uranium which is called highly energy uranium and Iran had produced although they did not have to do so because they didn't have any running reactor and even when they had this running reactor which just started operation these days Russia will supply the fuel so Iran has no meaningful reason to produce this fuel for its own reactors but after all this is their right and they can use their right but whether it is economic to feasible or not this is their problem to some extent but then it becomes the problem of the United States because United States said with this much of low-energy uranium in a secret facility you may have something like 20 or 25 kilograms of highly energy uranium which would be more than sufficient for one bomb and since there was this QUM facility QUM in QUM there was this secret facility as I just mentioned during the first hour and also in previous weeks Iran may take this low-energy uranium the United States says and take it to a secret facility like QUM because the IAEA cannot confirm it there are no other secret facilities and if there is one and if Iran did this and took it to that facility this much of low-energy uranium is enough for 20 or 25 kilograms of highly energy uranium so therefore the West pressurized on Iran to take this low-energy uranium outside of Iran because the West doesn't believe, doesn't trust Iran that this will stay as low-energy uranium as peaceful and it can be diverted to Mitri and it can be diverted to high-energy uranium in a secret facility just like the one in QUM area so therefore Russia in order to solve this problem conducted negotiations with Iran just last summer and end of summer early autumn and during these negotiations Russia promised to take this 1200 kilograms and in return for giving it's not just because 100% this is 20% energy uranium for Iran's research reactor in Tehran because in the Tehran research reactor Iran says their fuel is out, it's finished and they need this fuel which is enriched up to 20% of this much kilogram for treating the cancer patients because they will have to produce isotopes which are used in the cancer treatment and Russia says and the West says okay you give me this low-energy uranium this much in return for which I will give you a year later this much 20% energy uranium that can be used in Tehran research reactor and Russia was supposed to make this 1200 kilograms into 20% 120 kilograms which could be made into fuel pellets in this form in France so all these negotiations, technical issues, political issues were carried out in Moscow or somewhere in Russia also in Tehran and other places and I understand Russia and Iran have come to very close positions but one day or the next day Iran said we're not in, we woke up this is what the Russians say and then the Russians were really pissed off you spend days and nights and all enough week in week out so you're working out a huge project you try to sort of provide Iran what it needs in return for also providing what the West needs get rid of this that could be secretly weaponized and then one day Iranians come and say we're out, we're gone home so Russia said all right I mean you use me and you will suffer the consequences so of course these consequences have not been there as many people might have thought of but Russia's position has become tougher and it's tougher because on June 9, 9 of June this year 2010 there was this UN Security Council resolution 1929 which was voted and which actually envisaged tougher sanctions on Iran not comprehensive but to the point pointing at some of the key issues etc which was voted no by Turkey I mean Turkey did not vote for it and voted against so this issue has become the subject of much controversy and discussion understanding of anything so we had to again explain the situation as to why Turkey did this and that so therefore in this case the Russian position was somewhat shifted from if not very sort of warm but from lukewarm to a little bit cooler yes, Amelia the question is about Turkey's initiative in the swap deal and how this was actually perceived by the other members of the UN Security Council or the rest of the world is this the question? How are they both view Iran? yes, Iran and Russia well there is no swap between Iran and Israel for a time I may not be possible for the next decade or so well first of all there was no swap between Iran and Russia there was this negotiations which I mentioned which have been conducted quite intensively for quite a long time actually for maybe weeks months and then Russians thought they came to a point of convincing Iran to give its 12 hundred kilograms of low-range uranium to Russia to make into a fuel and reach up to 20% then Russia would send it to France to prepare for the fuel pellets that can be used in the research reactor and that would take about a year but then as I said if not all of a sudden but at some point Russians sort of Iranians said ok we are walking out we are not going to implement this deal it was not signed, there was nothing signed, there was just negotiations so this of course caused a lot of anger on the side of Russians and then they toughen their position with the Iran but then came when this issue was if not made public but of course those who are involved the IAEA and others knew about this deadlock even between Iran and Russia then came this statement, this remark made by then director general of the IAEA Mohammed El-Baradeh during a TV program in the United States on Charlie Rose when I was there I was always watching Charlie Rose something very very intellectually stimulating and during this conversation he says well actually Turkey can play a role in getting this fuel out of Iran it could be stored on Turkish territory in Turkish facilities and in return for which the IAEA, France, Russia and the United States which is known as the Vienna group could provide Iran with the fuel and when this issue, when this statement made by Mohammed El-Baradeh of course Turkey said ok we are here to help and if there is anything we can help resolve this situation we are more than ready to do it then as far as I understand could follow Turkey has conducted somewhat secret diplomacy or behind-the-door diplomacy because in this kind of issues you have to be very sensitive not to leak anything not to give any impression to the world that you are doing this on that because there may be some provocations from outside and from within so Turkey conducted secret diplomacy which culminated in the Niktur Swap deal which was signed in Tehran together with Brazil, Turkey and Iran on May 17 which was later on turned down by the United States and I discussed in the article which I show you a couple of times today that was actually not a very clever decision and I said this to whomever I see from the US administration just last week I said to someone also who is who has an important position in this administration and as I argue in that article in the built-in of the atomic scientists in my opinion there is no other way but to resuscitate the deal or not no other way to bring Turkey in there is P5 plus 1 maybe another plus 1 P5 plus 1 plus 1 and this makes P5 too right okay and this one being Germany and this one would be Turkey why not? because it is important to note here when you listen to the Iranians about what they sort of think they sent or what kind of message they believe they sent to the United States and then talk to the US and Americans about what kind of message they believe they received from the Iranians you can see the huge gap Iranians believe they sent a message to the Americans and Americans believe they received some message of course through some statements made on behalf of some others etc and then you see that neither the message is sent correctly nor the message is received correctly so there can come into play Turkey to bridge the gap and to bring the two sides together because it is in the interest of Turkey not to allow or not to let or not to give the United States the justification for any further sanctions for any military operation is for sure and it is also essential from Turkey's perspective not to provide the necessary pretext for Iran to advance its own capabilities even further because when the swap deal was turned down by the United States and by the rest of the world Iran said look I have my enrichment facility and I can enrich myself up to 20% Iran used this issue in order to advance its peace capabilities from 3.5% enrichment to 20% enrichment yes small quantities but another crisis and another controversy Iran might say well I have to increase my capabilities from now where it is to this point so every such crisis situation provides Iran with the pretext or justification for advancing its capabilities so therefore Turkey does neither want the United States to use this for a military operation or tougher sanctions nor wants Iran to use this for advancing its own capabilities which are of course not welcome by Turkey anyway so we will continue on Friday with the position of Israel well it's gonna be very interesting next Friday alright I'll see you on Friday