Word: iaea
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...told me last week that the report was prepared to say with a "moderate" degree of certainty that Iran had stopped its nuclear-weapons program, but the information wasn't very conclusive. That finding would have put the U.S. in the same camp as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - deeply concerned about the Iranian efforts to enrich uranium but skeptical about the regime's efforts to fashion that uranium into a bomb...
...although hardly sufficient, by itself) for a nuclear weapon. But enriching uranium, to a far lower degree, is also an integral part of any civilian nuclear energy program - and, it's entirely legal for any signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in good standing to enrich uranium under IAEA monitoring. Iran is a signatory of the NPT, although it has been ordered to suspend uranium enrichment because of its non-compliance with some transparency requirements in its previous nuclear activities. The suspension, therefore, is envisaged as a temporary requirement, until such time as Iran can satisfy concerns raised...
...Iran, of course, has defied the demand that it suspend enrichment, even after the demand was backed by U.N. sanctions, but it has been working with the IAEA to resolve the transparency concerns. So, while Iran's objective is to resolve the outstanding issues without actually turning off its enrichment centrifuges, the U.S. objective is to get it to turn off those centrifuges regardless of the status of the transparency issues...
There was something for everyone in last week's IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program. For the bomb-Iran hawks, there was confirmation that Iran continues to enrich uranium despite the limited sanctions of the U.N. Security Council. For Iran's leaders there was confirmation of their cooperation with nuclear inspectors and of the fact that they have not diverted nuclear material for bomb-making purposes. And for advocates of continued diplomacy there was sufficient evidence of Iranian cooperation, and insufficient evidence of any immediate peril, to justify further negotiations...
...enriching uranium is permitted under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran's failure to fully disclose all of its past nuclear operations prompted the Security Council to demand a suspension of enrichment until all outstanding concerns can be resolved. What Iran has lately attempted to do is to resolve the IAEA's original complaint without actually turning off its centrifuges. For the U.S. and its allies, however, the key objective is preventing the Iranians from mastering the enrichment know-how that would allow them to produce bomb material. And so the deadlock continues...