 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I'm Rishabh and today we'll be discussing the IAAA report on Iran released on November 8th, 2011 regarding the implementation of the NPT safeguards agreement and Security Council resolutions in Iran. To discuss the issue, we have with us Prabir Purkayashta, who's been working on the nuclear proliferation issue for quite some time now. Welcome to the show, Prabir. Thank you. Now, prior to the release of the report, there was much scare mongering amongst media in both Israel and in the United States, suggesting that the IAA might have found a smoking gun in Iran. However, the report itself seems to suggest that the IAAA has found convincing proof that Iran is continuing to develop nuclear weapons. So, what is new in the report for the IAAA to have come to this conclusion? Rishabh, I think one of the more interesting aspects of the report that there does not seem to be anything new in this report that we haven't seen earlier. IAAA has been releasing reports from 2008, which contain much of what this report has said. And for the life of me, having gone through the report all the 25 pages, I have not been able to discover anything new except their talk about this bus-sized container in Parchin, which could conceivably have been used for what is called nuclear implosion testing, nuclear trigger testing, which doesn't involve actually any radioactive material of this kind of material. Interestingly, IAAA itself had some questions about Parchin much earlier. They have had inspections of Parchin done in 2005 twice and they didn't discover anything. So, if you look at all the statement that have come out of this IAAA report, I honestly have not found anything new. And this is almost the same conclusion that all the commentators who have looked at the reports seem to have come to that while the tone of the report has certainly changed from what the earlier reports were, but the content that is there apart from the language does not seem to be anything new. Sure. Now, the report has spent a considerable amount of time on building up the credibility of the intelligence that it is based on. Now, do you agree with the assessment that the information itself is credible? For example, you referred to the laptop of death that was found in 2005 and it appears most of the information in this report is again based on material found in that laptop. Has there been any change or any further evidence found to suggest that that information is credible? Now, this is again the most important element of the IAAA report because as you rightly said that it appears that this what they call the study document which is really what is that really the what's called the laptop of death is laptop of death because one Iranian supposedly physicist who was killed later is why have is supposed to have smuggled this out and handed over to the Turkish authorities. This is where the whole thing comes from. This is something in 2005. Even at that time it was held that this is really a plant that was done by the Israeli and American intelligence agencies. But looking at the 2005 laptop of death of the documentation which this time the IAAA seems to have given it credibility the two issues. One is why was this document held to be fraudulent and one of the major reasons for this it showed what is called the Shahab missile. It was shown that this missile had a certain shape and it did a certain what's called the nose cone. Now, that was known only in 2004 onwards that this nose cone had been changed by Iran and the design had changed and the earlier missile pictures that people had was with the nose cone which are which was of the of the North Korean origin. So, there was some documentary evidence to show that it wasn't something which the Iranians would have done after 2003 because that by the time the design itself of the nose cone had changed. So, if they are doing research after 2003 around that time then there is no reason why they should use something which already they had discarded. There is no particular reason why they should be using an older design for making a near reentry vehicle with a nuclear payload. So, there is there was that was one of the reasons why this is held to be something which had been planted. Now, people who have gone through the laptop of death their conclusion has been the following that they think that there is a lot of material which is obviously true which has been garnered from Iranian and other sources but they are really low level material which most of it pertaining to before 2003 and Iranians themselves have admitted that before 2003 they had an active program which is stopped after 2003 and this is also what the national intelligence agencies had come to as a conclusion in 2007 in the United States. So, there is really 2003 and before there is a lot of material which they could have easily used but the come up some of the things which they have shown which are really shows that Iran was involved in nuclear testing or developing weapons are really those which are the contested ones and there the dividend seems to be much too sketchy and it seems to be they could be easily planted particularly because of electronic documentation easy to change easy to fraud. So, that is really the reason why up to 2008 till al-Baraday was there there was the IAA never accepted this documents to be the basis of the reports they did produce that there was this allegations but that themselves were rather skeptical about it and this is one of the divisions which seem to have been there in IAA. So, it is a little surprising that in 2011 they have suddenly said that they now have started believing in the laptop of death because of more material having been given by 10 member states and obviously two of them are really Israel and the United States which again means that it is it is really quantity rather than the quality of information that they have based themselves on. Absolutely. So, now in the report itself then have they found any particular or specific evidence of breach of any of the Security Council resolutions or of the IAA resolutions. For example, have they found that uranium is being diverted from research purposes or from other genuine purposes to nuclear programs or for example, have they have also the IAA has also commented on how new facilities have come up in the last few years without this being reported or without further information being given to the IAA on this as is required under law. You know there again there are two sets of issues over there. IAA Board of Governors and Security Council resolution said that you cannot enrich fuel. Iran does not accept it because it says I have the right under NPT to enrich fuel. I do not will not do it to weapons grade and it is completely under safeguard and IAA has very clearly said no diversion is taking place. There is the small amount of 20 kilos which are somehow the inventory has not been reconciled but even IAA has not made a major issue out of it. So, one is no diversion is taking place and IAA has really said that clearly I think in the say Clause 52 of the report. Is there any way for the IAA to actually know if there is diversion? Because there are safeguards, they are all safeguarded fuels, they have or they are continuing with the safeguarding safeguards program. So, IAA inspectors are there and each part of the nuclear inventory the fissile material or the uranium enrichment program all the inventories are being monitored by IAA. So, IAA is actually certified even in this report in I think as I said Clause 52 the diversion has not taken place. So, that is that is there. The other part of it the violation of security council resolution of costs because they are still continuing to enrich what they claim for peaceful purposes and they have IAA agrees that till now it is only for peaceful purposes that is going on. The second set of question is when you said they have not certified, they have not notified IAA of certain things which they are supposed to for new facilities. Now, that goes into what is called the additional protocol. Now, additional protocol has not been ratified by Iran as well as by a large number of countries. So, Iran is not the only one who has not ratified the additional protocol, it is really NPT's additional protocol which would put a lot more restrictions than the ones which NPT had put. Interestingly, United States itself ratified the additional protocol somewhere around 2008 or 2008 or 2009 around that time and essentially I if I remember correctly with the Hyde Act. So, if you really look at it this is something which a number of countries still they have not ratified or have accepted. So, therefore for Iran to be held in breach of something they have not been they have not ratified. It is not an obligation. Is something which is very strange for IAA to say they can say yes but they have to also admit that the Security Council has asked them to ratify. It is one of the things that the Security Council has asked them to ratify but Iran is under law, international law is not bound to ratify it and therefore they cannot be held in violation of something they have not ratified. Absolutely. The report essentially indicates that Iran has not conclusively proved that it is not developing nuclear weapons. Now, is there a standard of proof required here for the IAA? For example, the IAA itself in its report has called on Iran to engage with the agency to engage in all outstanding issues to exclude the existence of military dimensions to the program. Is this fair? I think this is something which is almost impossible to prove. To prove that you have not done something. The proof something, the absence of something is almost impossible. You can only prove the presence of something. So, I think this in fact what it reminds me is an impossible standard. It is impossible standard and also very much the WMD reputation which was done in Iraq. Iraq was always asked to prove before the invasion that they do not have WMDs and in fact the western commentators all said that this is very easy to do. Just tell us where the WMDs are and then dismantle them and that is the only proof we will accept. So, the only way Iran can accept and prove that they are not doing anything by showing that they have done something and say now we have proceeded to dismantle it and even then they would say well how much else are you hiding? So, in a certain sense this is a standard of proof I think which is impossible. So, why do you think that the IAA is actually risking its credibility at this point of time? I mean what has you keep referring to the fact that there has been a change in scenario since 2008 and since Baraday designed or quit left as a head of the IAA. What has actually changed in the political scenario to cause the IAA to come out with a report like this? Why has the tenor of the report changed? I think the change of director general has made all the difference. If you remember IAA when it was headed by Baraday whatever he might have played footsie with the US and which he did partially but he held out for instance when IAA was thought to be used as an instrument of US policy on Iraq he held out and said we do not believe there are WMDs in Iraq we also believe that we have dismantled the program yes we could do more inclusive inspections but we do not think that they have WMDs. So, he did not really participate in the US campaign on Iraq WMDs or the western campaign against WMDs in Iraq. When it comes to Iran under Baraday they had raised questions they had done a certain set of things they had resolved a set of things with Iran they were critical of Iran but nevertheless they did not go out on a limb and say yes I think they are doing nuclear weapons I think that was an important issue. So, while as I said they were willing to play part of the game they didn't really go whole hog in fact that Iran was referred to the security council itself is not something which which I was really fair on in my view I think that really did play American game in some sense part of it but here under director general Amano the current Japanese director general of IAA I think this completely tipped over to becoming completely instrument of American policy. Now, if you look at the WikiLeaks which came cable which came where the American diplomats had met Amano and he's openly said that he's in their camp. So, why at this point of time do you see this report then as the start of an internet again of greater international pressure on Syria Iran so on and so forth to again leading to sanctions the greater sanctions possibly war in an unlikely scenario why now? I would suspect that this is really playing out to American policy needs and Amano has really in that sense succumbed completely to it if not was in on from the very beginning. So, that is one part of it why now I think the US wants to ratchet up the pressure on Iran and of course on Syria as well I think it's got a mold and by what has successfully has been engineered in Libya the fact the Qaddafi is now gone. So, the two regimes which they really target in this region is now Iran and Syria these are the two for Israel these are the two really ones which stand out or hold out against the dominance of the region. So, in some sense the military dominance of Israel is guaranteed by their complete monopoly of nuclear weapons. If there's no monopoly of nuclear weapons and it's enough for Iran to have nuclear weapons capability it doesn't have to have nuclear weapons to upset this kind of complete dominance. So, I think what they are building up to now is a regime change in Iran regime change in Syria and the therefore the need to put much greater pressure on Iran and Syria and therefore the need for an IAE report which would go into that and play into the game of scratching up sanctions putting pressure on sanctions. Unfortunate part of it is IAE is not only damaged its credibility by a report which is really held to be unprofessional. In fact, one of the commentators have said that you are talking about explosion bridge wire detonators as being something which is largely for nuclear purpose is very few civilian purpose is not so. So, this unprofessional and that I think has damaged even the. No, in fact the report has been found to be factually incorrect on numerous occasions. For example, when it talks about an ex-soviet scientist who has worked on numerous nuclear military programs it turns out that the Soviet scientist actually worked only on nano diamonds and that is his pure area of expertise. So, clearly the report has jumped to conclusions in many, many parts. I would like to thank Probeer for coming in and discussing the IAE report on Iran's nuclear obligations. Hope to see you guys again on news click sometime soon.