Nuclear Reset - Program on Strategic Stability Evaluation (POSSE)

Chapter 14. IAEA Safeguards275ditional enrichment facility, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant.Subsequently, Iran announced its intention to build ten new enrichmentplants.Iran continued its work on heavy water related projects, againcontrary to the relevant resolutions of the Board of Governors andthe United Nations Security Council, including the constructionof the IR-40 heavy water moderated research reactor at Arak andoperation of a Heavy Water Production Plant.Although for the year 2009 the Agency was able to conclude thatin Iran, “all declared nuclear material remained in peaceful activities,”verification of the correctness and completeness of Iran’s declarationscontinued.NPT member nations that have only minimal amounts of nuclearmaterials or none at all are expected to conclude the ComprehensiveSafeguards Agreement together with the Small Quantities Protocol(SQP); so far, over 70 such agreements have been signed. Such protocols,however, do not provide the Agency with the means neededto obtain the necessary safeguards information or conduct the requiredverification checks. In particular, the Agency lacks the abilityto obtain information from the countries at an early stage on theirplanned or existing facility designs. There are also no provisions forsubmission of initial reports on the amount of nuclear material usedfor peaceful activities within the borders of that country (or underits jurisdiction or control), and finally, these protocols make no allowancesfor inspections. 12In the meantime, as has recently become increasingly obvious,the amounts of nuclear material and numbers of facilities of varioustypes in such countries have been increasing, which cannot but underscorethe need for stronger safeguards. Not least among the reasonsfor amending the Small Quantities Protocol was the situationthat developed with the nuclear activities of Saudi Arabia, whichhad dragged out the process of concluding the ComprehensiveSafeguards Agreement and the Small Quantities Protocol for manyyears before doing so in 2005. 13That same year, the Board of Governors approved measures thatwould require nations with Small Quantities Protocols to submitinitial nuclear material reports and timely information about the designsof their planned nuclear facilities so as to allow the necessaryinspections to be conducted on-site. As a result of the administrativemeasures approved by the Board of Governors, the Agency was