State Department condemns Iran over nuke report
The State Department today urged Iran to publicly address issues raised in a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding the Islamic Republic’s nuclear activities. "We cannot explain why it refuses to come to the table and engage constructively to answer the questions that have been raised," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told ...
The State Department today urged Iran to publicly address issues raised in a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding the Islamic Republic’s nuclear activities.
"We cannot explain why it refuses to come to the table and engage constructively to answer the questions that have been raised," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters today, "And you have to draw some conclusions from that."
Crowley noted that this was the first report on the issue from the IAEA since the agency’s new director general, Yukiya Amano, took up his post and the first since the existence of Iran’s secret uranium enrichment facility near Qom was exposed last September.
"There is no explanation for that facility that is consistent with the needs of a civilian nuclear program. And it characterizes the way in which Iran has conducted its relations with the IAEA and its failure to satisfactorily explain, you know, what its activities and ambitions are in the nuclear sphere," Crowley said.
Regarding the Qom facility, the IAEA report said the agency has information disputing Iran’s contention that it chose the location in 2007. The agency says it was planned in 2006, when Iran would have been require to notify the IAEA. Iran has failed to answer properly several of the IAEA’s questions on Qom, the report stated.
"The Agency has verified that the construction of the facility is ongoing, but that no centrifuges had been introduced into the facility as of 16 February 2010," it reads.
"The IAEA report shows in stark terms that Iran continues to obfuscate on its safeguards obligations," said Nima Gerami of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Regrettably, results from the IAEA’s inspection of Iran’s enrichment plant near Qom are still pending because Iran delayed access to the facility last October and ElBaradei did little to put his foot down."
Amano is not doing much better, according to Gerami.
"If Amano wants to be successful he should report as straightforwardly as possible in explaining Iran’s safeguards failures and avoid using falsely reassuring statements, as he did in this report, that the IAEA seeks to ensure its continuing ability to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material" in Iran.
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
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