The P5+1 and Iran Nuclear Talks Alert, June 12

Countdown: 18 Days

What's the Fuss About the Additional Protocol?

An additional protocol is a legal document granting the IAEA inspection authority beyond what is permitted by a safeguards agreement. Additional protocols are voluntary agreements negotiated on a state-by-state basis with the IAEA. A principal aim is to enable the IAEA inspectorate to provide assurances that there are no undeclared activities and all declared nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes.

Under an additional protocol, the IAEA is granted expanded rights of access to information and sites. States must provide information about, and allow IAEA inspector access to, all parts of a State's nuclear fuel cycle--including uranium mines, fuel fabrication and enrichment plants, and nuclear waste sites--as well as to any other location with nuclear material or where suspected nuclear activities may have taken place. This includes managed access to military sites if the IAEA has concerns that nuclear activities may have taken place on those premises.

Additional protocols typically include provisions granting multiple entry visas to inspectors, access to research and development activities, information on the manufacture and export of sensitive nuclear related technologies and allow for environmental samples.

In the case of Iran, this would give the agency regular access to sites that are not part of the IAEA's safeguards agreement with Iran. This would include access to Iran's uranium mines, centrifuge production workshops, the heavy-water production plant at Arak, and managed access to sites like Parchin, where the IAEA has evidence that activities related to nuclear weapons development may have taken place.

When in place, an additional protocol also substantially expands the IAEA's ability to check for clandestine, undeclared nuclear facilities by providing the agency with authority to visit any facility, declared or not, to investigate questions about, or inconsistencies, in a state's nuclear declarations.

Busting Ballistic Missile Myths

At a June 10 committee hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtine (R-Fla.) said, "perhaps the biggest failure" of nuclear talks with Iran is that the agreement does not include limits on Iran's ballistic missiles.

Arms Control Association Senior Fellow Greg Thielmann addressed the question of Iran's ballistic missiles in a comprehensive nuclear agreement in a May 2014 Threat Assessment Brief. 

Thielmann concludes that the best way to address the threat posed by Iran's ballistic missiles is to "ensure that Iran's nuclear program is sufficiently limited and transparent that missile limits become unnecessary."

He also points out that Iran would view ballistic missile limits--which no other country in the region is subject too--as "very restrictive, a humiliating denial of sovereign rights" for which there is no legal basis.

Limits on missiles could be pursued more effectively through multilateral consultations in the regional context, he said.

Thielmann has also rebutted claims by Ros-Lehtinen and others that an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is imminent. ICBMs are typically classified as ballistic missiles with a range greater than 5,500 km.

In a Feb. 2 blog post on Arms Control Now, Thielmann said that "the Islamic Republic of Iran has long denied an interest in even developing an ICBM and has not flight-tested military missile systems with operational ranges beyond some 2,000 kilometers."

On June 10, J-Street released the results of a poll showing that 59 percent of American Jews support a nuclear deal with Iran. That number jumps to 78 percent when those being polled are provided information about the deal being negotiated, such as details on the intrusive inspections that would be imposed on Iran and the strict limits on uranium enrichment.

A CNN poll conducted in April showed that 53 percent of adult Americans favor the agreement.