In Pursuit of ‘Concrete Results’: An Interview With IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano

Yukiya Amano has been director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since December 1, 2009. For four years before that, he was the Japanese ambassador to the IAEA, chairing the agency’s Board of Governors from September 2005 to September 2006. He also has held a number of positions in the Japanese Foreign Ministry dealing with nonproliferation, arms control, and nuclear energy.

He agreed to answer written questions from Arms Control Today. Many of the questions deal with Iran’s nuclear program, the highest-profile issue of Amano’s tenure, but others cover a range of policy and technical issues that the IAEA is confronting.

ACT: What is the IAEA’s strategy with regard to concluding the long-running investigation into the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program? What specifically is preventing the IAEA and the government of Iran from reaching agreement on a structured approach to the investigation? Is it the agency’s aim to uncover details of the alleged activities or simply to verify that Iran is no longer engaged in such activities today?

Amano: The IAEA has made every effort to reach agreement with Iran on the structured approach to resolve all the outstanding issues. But we cannot agree to an approach that prevents us from conducting effective verification—that is, we have to be able to conduct activities that we consider necessary to support our independent conclusions and to do so in the manner that we deem necessary. If our hands are tied, we will not be able to attain satisfactory results that would support any meaningful conclusions.

It should be in the interest of Iran to let us undertake effective verification, resolve the outstanding issues, and restore international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program. We remain committed to constructive dialogue that brings concrete results.

ACT: Has the IAEA considered using a special inspection, as it did for North Korea in 1993, to gain access to facilities in Iran to allow the agency to complete its investigation into Iran’s nuclear activities with possible military dimensions? If not, why has this mechanism been ruled out?

Amano: A special inspection is one of the safeguards measures that we have at our disposal with all states with a comprehensive safeguards agreement in force. The safeguards agreement describes the necessary steps that would need to be followed. As a matter of fact, the IAEA has not called for a special inspection in relation to Iran. Currently, it is trying to resolve all the outstanding issues, including those with possible military dimensions, through dialogue.

ACT: Iran has not provided the IAEA with access to the Arak heavy-water reactor site in some time. What is your current assessment of when that reactor may become operational and of whether this reactor represents a second potential path by which Iran could produce fissile material for weapons purposes?

Amano: To be precise, the IAEA does have access to the IR-40 reactor site at Arak, but Iran has not provided us with up-to-date design information on the reactor for over six years, and it has not provided access to the Heavy Water Production Plant since August 2011.

As I said in my last report,[1] which was made public at the request of the Board [of Governors], Iran has confirmed that it aims to commission the reactor in the first quarter of 2014. It’s not for me to comment on the feasibility of that timetable or to speculate on how Iran intends to use the reactor. Our concern is that as the date for commissioning the facility gets closer, the lack of up-to-date design information is having an increasingly adverse impact on our ability to verify the design of the facility and so to implement an effective safeguards approach.

ACT: In your December 6 comments at the Council on Foreign Relations, you said that you are “firmly committed to dialogue” with Iran on the various aspects of its nuclear program but that the talks should not just go on for their own sake “without producing any concrete result.”[2] Is it possible that, at some point, the agency would judge that the talks are not producing a concrete result and therefore not worth continuing? If so, under what circumstances would the IAEA make such a decision? If not, how should your December 6 comments be interpreted?

Amano: I don’t want to speculate on the next steps. As I have said, the Iran-IAEA dialogue has been going around in circles for quite some time. This is not the right way to address an issue of such great importance. We are committed to continuing dialogue with Iran to find a solution through diplomatic means, but we need a constructive dialogue with concrete results.

ACT: What confidence does the IAEA have with regard to its knowledge of the location and amount of nuclear material in Syria? Are you confident that the Syrian government is able to maintain proper safety and security at its research reactor in Damascus? What is the most recent information you have on this topic, and when did you receive or verify it?

Amano: I’m afraid I can’t go into detail on nuclear material in Syria as the IAEA cannot publicly discuss safeguards issues in individual member states, unless authorized to do so by the Board of Governors. I will be making a report on Syria to the next Board of Governors meeting in September.

As for the safety and security of Syrian nuclear activities, these are national responsibilities—the IAEA does not make or enforce international regulations or conduct inspections for these purposes.

ACT: Under new arrangements arrived at after 2008, the IAEA is to expand facility-specific safeguards in India to sites declared as “civilian” and implement a version of the 1997 Model Additional Protocol. What is the cost to the IAEA, in money and inspector hours, of applying these safeguards? What is the nonproliferation value of applying safeguards to facilities that have been declared civilian in a country that also has unsafeguarded facilities that are used to produce material for a nuclear weapons program? Is India’s version of the additional protocol equivalent to those applied to non-nuclear-weapon states under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), or is it similar to those of the NPT nuclear-weapon states?

Amano: I welcome any progress towards placing more nuclear material and facilities under IAEA safeguards. Before the new arrangement, India had only four facilities under safeguards. Today there are 10, and we expect more to be added soon. So for me, this is good progress.

ACT: Are the current figures for significant quantities—8 kilograms of plutonium and 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium—still an appropriate basis for setting detection goals? Is the IAEA considering the possibility of revising those figures? Why or why not?

Amano: For detecting diversion of nuclear material in a non-nuclear-weapon state that has not produced and tested a nuclear explosive, the significant quantities established by the agency remain appropriate for detection goals used in our safeguards approaches. We are not currently considering changes to the significant quantity values.

ACT: In November 2006, the IAEA Board of Governors declined to approve a request for cooperation for Iran’s Arak heavy-water reactor due to concerns about Iran’s noncompliance with its safeguards obligations. The agency has, however, provided technical cooperation to other states, such as Pakistan, on heavy-water reactors and uranium mining although it is well known that the country is enriching uranium and building heavy-water reactors for plutonium production. What steps is the IAEA taking to ensure that assistance provided to member states under its technical cooperation program does not support, directly or indirectly, military nuclear activities? Under what circumstances would the IAEA terminate technical cooperation with a country?

Amano: The IAEA Statute authorizes the agency to provide help to its member states so they can benefit from the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and one of the main channels for such support is through Technical Cooperation (TC) projects.

Requests for TC projects that involve sensitive technologies are scrutinized by IAEA specialists with regard to relevant international requirements for nuclear safety and nonproliferation. Every TC project passes through a transparent process of approval by the 35-nation Board of Governors. All TC activities are subject to the application of the IAEA’s relevant safety standards and, where applicable, to IAEA safeguards.

ENDNOTES

1. International Atomic Energy Agency, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” GOV/2013/27, May 22, 2013.

2. Council on Foreign Relations, “A Conversation With IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano,” December 6, 2012, http://www.cfr.org/nuclear-energy/conversation-iaea-director-general-yukiya-amano/p29628.