Undisclosed Discussions in the Iran-EU Nuclear Talks

Rooz Online:

In its most recent issue, "Rahbord" the quarterly the publication of the Center for Strategic Studies which is affiliated to Iran’s State Expediency Council published the comments of Dr. Hassan Rohani who at the time was the chairman of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. His remarks, which he made last October in a meeting of the Cultural Revolution Council, are considered semi confidential.

The following are excerpts of his talk.

Our decision-making discussions of the nuclear issue within the government take place at four different levels: READ MORE

1- The discussions among experts which are chaired by one of the Foreign Ministry’s directors and all related agencies participate.
2- Higher level discussions among more senior experts which are held at the secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council.
3- Cabinet level discussions which also take place at the Supreme National Security Council, and,
4- State leadership level directives where macro and fundamental decisions regarding the state are made.

At the state leadership level discussions it was decided that according to the September 2005 resolution of the IAEA (i.e. Agency) we are obliged to present the Agency with a complete picture of all our previous activities in this regard. The debate there was whether this would actually solve our problem or not. On one hand, if we presented all the details of the past, we could have paved our way to be reported to the UN Security Council, while on the other, if we didn’t, we would have been in blatant violation of the resolution, in which case we could have been referred to the Security Council as well. So we concluded that no matter which route we took we would be taken to the UN Security Council.

With that prospect, the discussion at the expertise level was whether we should cooperate with the Europeans or not, and whether this would have any effect on the situation. Some believed that cooperating with the Europeans would not change anything because Europe was not independent from the US which was bent on taking us to the Security Council. The Europeans would not be able to stop this. At the same time there were others who thought that Europeans could be effective in our goals. These issues were discussed at the state leadership level as well. So when we invited the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany to Iran, we wanted to know how to disclose our past nuclear activities without being taken to the UN Security Council. Without such a disclosure, the IAEA would have concluded that we had no intention of cooperating with it because most of the activities that we had undertaken without informing the IAEA had already been disclosed to it by other countries with whom we had worked. For example, regarding our cooperation with China we had not disclosed our work with them to the IAEA while we were obligated to do so under the Additional Protocols, but which had been communicated to the IAEA by the Chinese, and they told us so. The same is true about some of the equipment that we had purchased from Russia. They too told us that they had informed the IAEA of all their transactions with us. We found out that the IAEA even knew of some of our own past experiments. For example we had conducted an experiment in Tehran some years earlier. The project manager of the task was a university professor and one of his students had written a paper on the same subject as the experiment. His paper was produced in several copies, one of which, as we found out much later, was in the hands of the IAEA. At some point the Agency presented the paper to us and told us that we had conducted that particular experiment. In another incident which we thought had been confidential, a university professor who was a member of the research team of a project published his findings in an international journal. The IAEA had a copy of that as well. So most of the cases that we thought the Agency did not know about, were actually completely known to the Agency. In yet another case when we agreed to inform the IAEA of our activities, one of the officials of the Vienna-based watchdog told us that we would probably also include a specific activity that we had undertaken some 10 to 12 years earlier, indicating that they knew exactly what we had been doing even then.

In Tehran, the most important promise that we got from the European foreign ministers was that they would keep the nuclear issue from going to the UN Security Council and would do everything to resolve it at the IAEA. Europe kept its promise during the IAEA November meeting. After that however, our confidence building with them faltered. I should add that at that time we were not aware of the secret discussions that US and Britain was having with Libya. We also did not know that the same dealer who had sold equipment to us had also sold equipment to Libya for its nuclear program. We had submitted a separate private report to IAEA’s AlBaradei, along with a general report, about the Libyan dealer and what we had purchased through him. The Agency knew exactly what we had bought from him and where through other sources, something that Libya had informed the US and Britain. The Libyans told absolutely everything from the beginning to the end to the Americans and the British. Furthermore, the Libyans did everything that these two countries asked them to do. This includes issues regarding the Middle East process, Israel, cutting relations with the Palestinians, cutting the financial aid they were providing, etc. So from Libya they learned that there may have been other acquisitions from the dealer that we had not disclosed. Actually we had disclosed all our purchases from the dealer to the IAEA except one item related to P2. The IAEA specifically asked us whether we had purchased P2 diagrams or not, which made us realize that they knew about that as well. We planned to include disclosing the P2 purchase as well in our report to the Agency, but since we had not, it was considered a violation. This issue broke the trust that had been built between us and the Europeans, which seriously hurt the process that we had begun. This is especially true since the Americans had told the Europeans that we Iranians were not telling them the whole story. The Europeans until then had told the US that they believed in us. So with the disclosure of the P2 issue, the Europeans became suspicious that there may have been other purchases that we had not disclosed. For example they asked us whether we had acquired blue prints for a nuclear bomb as well or not. This is so because the Libyans had purchased such a blue print. The Europeans even told us that the same dealer had sold the blue print for a nuclear bomb to the Libyans and how was it possible for you to purchase P1 and P2 but not the bomb design. The dealer rests in a Malaysian prison today. When we spoke with the three European foreign ministers in Tehran, there were also some other issues which we were not aware of. For example we did not know of the high contamination levels above Iran’s atmosphere. This meant that there were traces of over 50% enriched uranium in our facilities. Whenever there are traces of more than 20% enriched uranium and when they are 25, 50 and even 60 percent, this is a sign that nuclear bomb making is involved. When the IAEA inspectors took samples from our nuclear facilities, by using special sponges they can determine the kind of activities that had been going on at the facility. Tests could even show the dates when such activities had taken place. In the summer of 2003 when the IAEA took such samples and then tested them, they told us that the nuclear toxic levels in Iran were 70 or 80 percent. This issue led to even more suspicions and discussions. We were shocked about this contamination because we had not conducted activities that would have caused it. They of course would not accept our explanations. We even raised the possibility that perhaps some of the IAEA inspectors who were under the influence of the US may have brought these sponges into the country with traces of highly enriched uranium. The Agency till today is not certain whether the contaminated parts entered the country with the uranium traces or whether nuclear enrichment activities in Iran produced the results.

Very interesting disclosures. A must read.