 Since 1995, when Russia and Iran signed this contract for the completion of the Boucher reactor. Of course, Iran continued its efforts to develop indigenously by itself, nuclear technology, by means of these scientists who were in Iran already and also who raise themselves in Russian institutions. Of course, Iran now has become a very capable country with respect to nuclear science and technology. Of course, it is not only the Russian Federation which helped raising a significant number of Iranian scientists and scholars or technicians. In the 60s and 70s, France and Germany also opened their institutions to Iranian scholars. Well, that was another Iran, the Shah, the Iran of the Shah, an ally of the West or at least a country which had no significant problems with the West. So not only, of course, France and Germany but also other countries like Canada and some Nordic countries in Sweden and Belgium and Italy and other countries in Europe and North America, United States as well as Canada. So they all have opened their institutions to Iranian students for earning their degrees and master's degrees and PhD degrees and also work in these companies in these countries. So Iran today is a country which is capable of developing almost a complete nuclear fuel cycle. What do we mean by a nuclear fuel cycle? Actually it is a cycle which starts with the extraction of uranium, the natural uranium which is under the beneath of the surface and under the ground and it has to be extracted then of course clean up, purified and it has to be converted into uranium exafluoride, it's a gas which is used for enrichment and then of course you make fuel then you use in the nuclear reactor score then the waste incorporates a certain amount of plutonium and then if you are capable of extracting that plutonium then by way of reprocessing then you can use either in the plutonium fuel reactors or for other purposes such as weapons development. At this point for making things a little bit more clear I have to explain certain things with numbers and figures in its simplest form possible. So it may not be very very sort of easy to understand for some of you but it's just even simpler than simplest chemistry that you may have learned at your high schools. Well uranium in nature is found basically in two isotopes and so the percentages that exist in nature are as such 0.07% and uranium 235 which is a very in an unstable condition and with the heat of a neutron uranium 235 splits and generates electricity energy. So let's try to understand what it means a neutron if sent to a 235 it splits so and then this significant amount of energy is released and then this hits another 235 another so there is this chain reaction which actually is needed for a new two weapons to detonate to be detonated. What is important therefore is to have this 235 isotope 238 cannot be directly used in weapons it can be used for other purposes such as clouding of armory I mean you may have heard the plated uranium used for in some weapon systems which according to some reports were used during the war in the Balkans there were some accusations I'm not going to that detail but what is significant is this but since this percentage exists in nature it cannot be used for weapons purposes for a nuclear weapon you need at least I mean if this is the amount that you need to produce a weapon the percentage of 235 must be U35 must be 90 plus percent it is found only this much in nature so there is actually only one way to increase this which is known as enrichment enrichment is something that is carried out in specific facilities enrichment facilities of course by way of centrifuges there are also some other technologies but the technology that Iran is known to have today is uranium centrifuges for enrichment and in this facility that will be talking about a little bit later that was hidden for so many years from 1984 to 2002 for about 18 years beyond the reach or beyond the control of the international atomic energy agency Iran established a large enrichment facility so what is important to know here this 235 isotope if enriched up to 3.5 or within the range of 3.5 to 8 percent it can be used in nuclear reactors in the nuclear reactor core if you use a fuel uranium fuel incorporating only to 3.5 to 8 percent and the average is 4 4.5 5 percent depending on the sort of type of fuel technology used in the reactor so this percentage is needed for civilian uses for electricity generation but for weapons purposes as I said 90 percent is needed therefore the natural percentage must be increased for civilian uses up to 3.5 percent or up to 90 percent or plus or above for weapons purposes and you can achieve this through certain technologies one of which is centrifuge technology which is widely used in many countries for fuel fabrication most enrichment facilities in the world actually there are some 12 or 13 countries which have this capability today and most of the production is for fuel production in the nuclear reactors core you have 3.5 percent enriched uranium which is said to be low enriched uranium and in the core you sort of irradiate this fuel by a neutron then you start a certain process and of course for this and this process generates heat here in the core of the reactor which or by means of which this heat you boil the water and the water produces vapor vapor is forced into the turbines which once they turn they they generate electricity I mean had this been coal or gas or oil motoring whatever you could still boil the water and so you need something to boil the water for vapor generation which in turn to turn the turbines and to generate electricity so if you use nuclear fuel then you have nuclear reactor you use nuclear fuel then you have nuclear energy so therefore this is in that sense is important something maybe I should try to show a little bit more explicitly about how this works again in its simplest possible form again assume this is the fuel in the core of course it's not the shape is different than that there are different shapes uh roads or plates or discs whatever and assume these are of course 235 well of course they are not static they are forward all times right and then you send a neutron and if a neutron hits here at 235 splits as I said generates heat and then releases another neutron which in turn heats another 235 then the process is you know continuing as such but some of the neutrons which the rest white is 238 and these are 235 right well this is the simplest form that I can sort of show you so the ones that do not hit anything go astray or at some point these white 235s that you can see here if we had another color maybe anyway some of them turn into 239 with the capture of a neutron so this 239 actually is what we call plutonium which during this nuclear reactors core operation these 235s are consumed by the heat of a neutron by releasing energy and releasing another neutron which hits another 235 releases another you know amount of energy etc but and these are consumed this amounting to up to 3.5 percent or 5 percent whatever or maybe 8 percent some reactors now work with 8 percent low energy volume and once these are consumed this fuel is of no more any use so you you have to treat as a waste so the waste treatment in nuclear technology is one of the most problematic issues there are basically of course toxicity and radiation radioactivity of the waste which is of great concern to countries for the environment and also the amount of plutonium that is there for for a certain period so since this core the fuel which is consumed for about six months a year depending on the length of the operation of the nuclear reactor then you take this fuel and you immerse in deep water this fuel is you may have seen on TV channels when some Iranian sort of a politicians looking into something like a pool which actually is where the fuel rods are immersed for cooling so it has to stay there for about a year or so a year and a half depends that it has to cool down to tolerable levels or workable levels and after which these this waste fuel can be subject to I mean you either just store there somewhere I mean which has to have no contact with water or the environment it has to be kept very safe and secure or should not reach pass into the hands of some other people some unauthorized people but also you have to take the necessary environmental sort of precautions but I mean either you can treat as a waste and take this fuel spend fuel and sort of a bury somewhere safe how safe this is also debated or if you have any military purposes you may take this fuel the waste fuel and the 238 plus a neutral which is plutonium then by using some chemical repossessing methods then you can extract that plutonium I don't know if you have seen it yesterday or the day before there was a big demonstration in Germany which they try to blockade a train coming from France which was carrying the repossess waste fuel which was used by German nuclear reactors sent to France for repossessing or for some purposes and probably plutonium might have been extracted and the the repossess fuel was being sent back to Germany and there was big clashes between the security forces and the demonstrators and the the environmentalist or the green piece or other people so therefore this issue has always been a problematic issue but what is important to bear in mind is that enrichment is such a technology that you need for fuel production for nuclear reactors if you reach up to 3.5 or 4 percent 5 percent or 8 percent above 8 percent it would be risky so typical civilian nuclear reactors do not use fuel uh with percentages higher than 8 percent normally it's 3.5 for 4.5 percent so you need enrichment for this purpose if you don't have a kandu type reactor uh canadian deterring rannium reactor which uses natural rannium which does not need uh represent enrichment only the kandu or canadian reactors do not use enriched rannium they use natural rannium of course after some purification they have to made into fuel pellets and then use in the reactor core and of course for this neutron to hit very low concentration of 235 you need some moderators such as heavy water which is a thick liquid which slows down the neutron and increases the likelihood for neutron to hit at 235 which is much less in concentration so in 235 percent low in rannium in most typical uh uh civilian nuclear reactors you need 3.5 and uh percent and therefore you can generate electricity for an extended period so the fuel as i said once used it has to be treated as a waste and buried somewhere or kept in very safe storage places or it can be processed to get the plutonium which is there for for a certain period which is not there for all the time so therefore this is uh this is something that uh is something that uh is significant what we have to understand from here is that the processing for instance today japan has uh as far as i know 53 or 54 nuclear reactors and if i'm not mistaken all of these nuclear reactors use uh plutonium as fuel so plutonium can also be used as a fuel and again these figures vary it is not always possible to have the exact number but japan is said to have several thousand tons of plutonium stocks that can be more than sufficient for more than maybe 100 or even more so years for 50 plus nuclear reactors that they have so plutonium can be used also for civilian nuclear reactors as a fuel but of course there is always a danger because plutonium if not used in the nuclear reactor as a fuel which requires a special they are called fast breeder reactors which also produce more plutonium than they consume well that's a different dimension of the problem but this plutonium if not used for civilian purposes can be readily used in weapons so even though most japanese colleagues of mine and japanese politicians would not like to admit it but in the west there is always this question maybe not as significant as other questions with respect to other countries but what would japan do with these large stocks of plutonium which japan claims to be accumulating for further and civilian uses in the coming years but of course the large amount of plutonium stocks has always been a source of worry in some circles in the west which i also myself witnessed during some of the discussions between japanese and american especially authorities anyway so what we have to bear in mind is that this especially enrichment technology as well as put uh processing technology are two significant technologies that can that are necessary to some extent for civilian purposes but also can be used for meter purposes especially if enrichment levels are increased from the civilian uses level which is normally 3.5 in some research reactors such as the one in cheque meje here in in stumble and also in tahran 20 percent enrichment might be necessary there are also some other civilian uses for instance uh nuclear submarines of course most nuclear submarines are nuclear weapons carriers but not all of them are nuclear weapon carriers because nuclear nuclear submarines are such submarines which operate with a nuclear reactor because thanks to the nuclear reactor uh nuclear submarines can of course do not need large stocks of like gasoline whatever to to be carried all the way for long distances and and and with the small reactor in the submarine uh nuclear fuel can generate large amount of energy for extended periods electricity and and and to turn the propellers and so therefore to operate the submarine but also to clean the air and also to to desalinate the water so thanks to this uh nuclear technology in the nuclear submarines uh nuclear submarines can stay uh under the water without coming to surface for very long periods and as i said not all of them are meter submarines i mean or nuclear weapons carriers so therefore uh nuclear submarines use 60 percent enriched or even 80 percent enriched uranium so therefore there can be some non-metry applications of enrichment starting from 3.5 for civilian nuclear reactors or 20 percent for research reactors or 60 or 80 percent or even higher percentages for submarine uses so enrichment is a very very significant technology and and depending depending on your end use or depending on your ultimate purpose enrichment technology may pose a threat or may have meter significance or may not pose any threat depending on uh the intentions and uh the desires of the country so therefore at the core of all this debate i mean the starting point of our discussion here was uh today's iran uh iran's problematic sort of situation with respect to its relations uh with the western countries especially united states so there is this puzzle on the one hand there is an iran which has launched a nuclear program as early as the u.s president suggested to the world that nuclear technology is good and everyone should benefit from it provided that of course they don't exploit the situation for major purposes and then united states uh gave encouragement to a number of countries including turkey and iran for installing small research reactors than large power reactors and then also educated these people or people from these countries including iran and in the 70s especially after iran acquired large amounts of money from oil exports when raised the bar and increased its ambitions to develop 20 000 megawatt electric install nuclear capability within the following 20 years then united states or american uh german french firms rushed into iran to sell their technologies and including enrichment and reprocessing which are now problems have become problematic so iran says look i am a state party to the npt and the the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and i sort of do my homework i comply with the treaty obligations and therefore i have the right to benefit from my my rights such as develop nuclear peaceful technology so let's have a look at the situation before going on any further with respect to the npt i don't think we have discussed this issue here and without discussing the npt and some of its major provisions it is not possible to understand fully what exactly is the situation with respect to iran's uh a nuclear program well what does being a state party to the npt mean npt as i said the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons which was signed in 1980 1968 and entering the force in 1970 and since then in i mentioned this a little bit in five year uh intervals there is this review conferences and in 1995 the npt was extended indefinitely and unconditionally well i said this at the outset because npt is here to say to stay with us for as long as we can think of of course provided all the countries you know go ahead with the regime or comply with the provisions of the regime or unless something extraordinary happens and which leads to the collapse of the regime so npt the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons is at the core of all this debate today and we have to properly understand what it means as i said in 45 united states in 49 the soviet union in 1952 the united kingdom in 1960 france and in 1964 china people's republic of china have detonated their nuclear devices well especially after uh french detonation when you know some concerns started to be raised as to how many countries would acquire nuclear weapons technology in how long into the future there is this information about the canada administration uh which i mean canady himself is known for having asked from his uh the fan secretary of magna mara to conduct a study and to have an assessment as to how far this could go i mean i mean what would be the scope of this development in nuclear technology and in 1962 63 the magna mara study suggests that within the next 20 years i mean by the early 1980s if everything goes the way they sort of uh go at the moment um there will be approximately 35 to 40 states which would acquire nuclear weapons so if nothing is done to stop the spread of nuclear technology magna mara uh believes of course based on his uh uh team's research on the subject that there are at least some 30 35 other states which are scientifically technologically capable and also politically willing to develop nuclear technology and if nothing is done to prevent this from happening within the next 20 years in in the early 1980s it is possible to see some 35 to 40 states with nuclear weapons which of course was not the desirable situation so especially after the cuban missile crisis in 1962 which brought the two superpowers uh to the brink of nuclear exchange i mean in nuclear warfare and the world was saved from a nuclear uh warfare nuclear catastrophe and it is so believed that the two leaders as well as two countries i mean the united states and the soviet union have learned dear lessons from this uh showdown the brinkmanship in the during the cuban missile crisis and they intensified and also accelerated their efforts to take such measures that would prevent further proliferation further spread of nuclear technology into the hands of many states and also to prevent other states from developing this technology because i mean at that time in the 1960s many european countries sweden belgium germany others were capable maybe if not at that time but would were capable of developing such weapons sooner than later and and and so maybe by the early 1970s if there would be no such an agreement no treaty uh such as the amputee other european states western european countries of course provided that there was this political will to do so they could have very well developed nuclear weapons so in order to prevent this the soviet union and the uh united states as i said accelerated their efforts and also intensified their efforts they try to resolve some of their differences because one was a leader of the western bloc and the other was the leader of the eastern bloc so they had a lot of influence on other countries and at times when they were disagreeing on other political issues of course their decisions would be very political rather than maybe rational but especially after having seen china detonating its first nuclear device then the ussr and the united states have combined their efforts and paid away to the conclusion of diplomatic efforts which aim at developing or drafting an international treaty so in 1968 the amputee was open to signature after so many of course deliberations not an easy issue and in my doctoral dissertation i had studied this process for those interested i can send a copy of my dissertation which i haven't read since i finished it because you read so many times and then you're fed up and you do not want to see it again anyway so in 1968 the treaty was signed open to signature and by the year 1970 after the 40th ratification which was necessary for the entry into force the treaty entered into force well this treaty is significant in the sense that it distinguishes or discriminates the term here might be a little bit tricky between two groups of states anybody who knows the meaning of this nws and nws well my former students would remember of course from other courses well there is two basically two groups of states nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states what does this mean according to the amputee because it was signed in 1968 and entered into force 1970 by the time united states ussr the soviet union united kingdom france and china have all developed and tested their first nuclear devices since it is not possible to give up that technology for good i mean once and for all for political reasons technological reasons economic reasons et cetera et cetera i mean three reasons of course they said look not that we have this technology doesn't mean that we will we want to keep it forever and we will do our best to start negotiations at the earliest time possible for fully disarming ourselves but in the meantime we don't want any new nuclear power or nuclear weapons capable state so if you sign the amputee and agree to be a non-nuclear weapon state that is commit yourself and promise that you will never ever even intend to develop nuclear weapons in the future we will give you all the assistance that might be necessary for you to develop peaceful nuclear technology for peaceful exploitation like energy generation applications in agriculture and health sector so many states at the time like 60 70 80 of them at the beginning they said well if we sign up with the amputee i mean if you become a state party to the amputee it's a non-nuclear weapon state and if you forgo the option i mean if we just quit or give up the option of weapons application we will get nuclear technology and we will get nuclear science assistance in this field and well we will bear off by signing this and become a member of the amputee and therefore we go ahead and sign because some state decided that they would never have any major ambitions anyway so why the bother to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and by giving up this meter option they would get assistance that they could possibly not get not be able to get otherwise so by by agreeing to be a non-nuclear weapon state and by by agreeing to give up the meter option once and for all they believe they could get ample assistance from the west or from the developed countries in terms of nuclear technology usage exploitation in their country so the five states which had detonated a nuclear device or nuclear weapon prior to 1st of January 1967 were counted as nuclear weapon state and they were allowed to keep their nuclear weapons of course with the condition of starting at an early date negotiations for complete disarmament which since then under the cold war conditions was not possible to achieve such a such a result anyway but on the other hand all of the states were invited to join the amputee as a non-nuclear weapon state by giving up the option of becoming or exploding nuclear energy for meter purposes but instead get this technology for peaceful applications so therefore in a sense the bargain was simple you give up the meter option you get technology for peaceful applications so this issue is important I mean this is also known as the bargain between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states it's known as bargain so of course it is not possible to count on states declarations only when a state promises to do something how can you make sure that that state do really complies with what it you know it is obliged to do and lives up to it to the commitments so the international atomic energy agency which was established already in 1957 with a view to you know moderating or regulating the nuclear exchanges between has and have nots I mean states that have nuclear technology and that do not have nuclear technology and the IAEA was given the task of conducting inspections in the countries on and the non-nuclear weapon states in order to see if these states which may have acquired nuclear technology by way of transfer or by way of developing themselves and to see if they were there was any diversion from peaceful uses to major uses so because non-nuclear weapon states promise that they will never ever develop nuclear weapons and this is a commitment which was made once and for all by signing and ratifying the MPT ratification is something that ties the hand of next generations so long as treaties enforce even if regime changes in a country all nested country withdraws from the treaty the treaty binds the hands of the next administration or next regime so just as the case in Iran today the Shah regime which signed and ratified the MPT and this situation also ties the hand of the islamic republic of Iran so therefore the many countries by signing the MPT and ratifying it also accepted the inspections of the IAEA in these countries and to prove to the world that they are not doing anything wrong other than that they were allowed to do which was the only and only peaceful applications and that there was no diversion from peaceful to military purposes but of course there has there was a difficulty since the 1970s when the treaty entered into force and the IAEA inspections were attempted to be carried out in the non-nuclear weapon states because the protocol or the procedures that govern the inspections had some loopholes and shortcomings in the 1970s what was known as the model protocol it incorporated a number of loopholes which some countries benefited such as Iraq remember here we mentioned the IAEA conducting inspections with a view to destroying removing and rendering harmlessly nuclear infrastructure of Iraq according to the UN resolution 687 so Iraq as a state party to the MPT a country which had signed and ratified the MPT and which was supposed to not to develop nuclear weapons was under the sort of a peaceful operations of some of the facilities but there were some also attempts as well in diverting some of the technology and material from peaceful to military purposes and the IAEA although it was conducting inspections from time to time before the 1991 war could not find anything or could not prove anything even though there was there was some intelligence reported Iraq was doing something illegal under the MPT but because the IAEA's mandate was limited according to the model protocol which had some loopholes the model protocol prevented the international atomic energy agency inspectors to visit every facility that they deemed would be important and also every place in the facility so there were some difficulties in that and therefore the inspection procedures was were not so convincing this situation was open to exploitation was open to manipulation as well as some countries uses for other purposes so this is therefore something at the crux of the matter but in short what we have to remember from the MPT I mean there are many things that you have to know about it but with respect to the specific purpose of Iran's question is that Iran is a country which has signed and ratified the the treaty and assumed the obligation to benefit from nuclear technology that it may have transferred from other countries such as Russia or it may have developed indigenously in its own with its own capabilities but use them and only for peaceful purposes and that Iran could not sort of for any reason have any meter ambitions of course this is the the right side of the situation the obligations as I said is to not to do anything wrong that may have meter applications but the the the line between this sort of peaceful and meter applications is so thin because with exactly the same or similar nuclear infrastructure and scientific accumulation a country may or may not use for both purposes or deviate from peaceful to military within not in so you know a long time period and if at all possible under some covered projects may sort of adopt some or may develop some metri capabilities so Iran is a country which is subject to IAE inspections and entertains its rights its rights from the MPT I mean by way of technology transfers and developing by itself indigenously and opens its facilities to inspections but according to the older protocol the 1971 IAA model protocol which as I said has some loopholes and shortcomings and under this protocol it is not possible for the IAA to provide assurances to the world that there is nothing wrong that Iran is doing of course even today just on on TV news I saw that the IAA made a statement Amano the the current director general of the IAA stated that he is not in a position to provide assurances that Iran is not doing anything wrong just like the situation with Anmovic remember Anmovic was not able to find anything because there was not in anything to find maybe or things that they were supposed to find were either taken away or hidden somewhere so therefore the task of the inspection agency here the IAA is to provide assurances that it has carried out all the necessary inspections and it has told went to everywhere it has gone to everywhere it has talked to everybody and then according to this inspections was fully convinced that there is nothing wrong and the IAA says I'm not in a position to to say anything like that at the moment so but this this puzzle still continues and will also continue this well on Friday we have this midterm exam which will start at nine sharp don't be late take all the necessary measures precautions to be here because the exam will start at nine and late comers may not be admitted well maybe five minutes ten minutes would be okay but if you come later you may not be admitted so consider the traffic if you come from the city or I don't know try not to be ill stay healthy this is well for everyone for all times and we'll start at nine and here in this room so we'll see after we'll continue the subject after the byram because there are too many other things to be discussed here okay thank you for coming and see you on Friday