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Breaking Stalemates on Iran and Syria at the IAEA

[Washington Institute for Near East Policy] Gregory Schulte - Earlier this month, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported little or no progress on either the six-year probe of Iran's nuclear activities or the more recent probe of Syria's clandestine cooperation with North Korea. For more than a year, Iran has refused to engage in substantive discussions about "possible military dimensions" to its activities. Tehran refuses to inform the IAEA of the construction of new nuclear facilities and refuses to allow monitoring of workshops where centrifuges for uranium enrichment are assembled. Damascus continues to deny the building of a covert nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance. Although Syria's reactor has been reduced to rubble, the IAEA still needs to ensure the absence of undeclared activities elsewhere in the country. If the IAEA settles for stalemate, these countries - and others - may conclude that they can violate their safeguards obligations and, if caught, merely refuse cooperation in order to avoid international scrutiny and sanction. If the IAEA cannot successfully investigate the most obvious of safeguards violations, its credibility will collapse. When confronted with emerging proliferation threats, countries at risk may see no real option other than to respond unilaterally. Amb. Schulte was the U.S. permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency from 2005 to 2009.
2009-09-24 08:00:00
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