IAEA response November 24, 2005

On November 24, 2005 the IAEA Board of Governors had before it a Report on Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

    The Report said: "The Agency is still seeking additional assurances that no P-2 programme was conducted...The Agency is currently reviewing the new information provided by Iran on the P-1 and P-2 enrichment programmes and has emphasized to Iran the importance of providing the additional requested supporting documentation...Iran's full transparency is indispensable and overdue...The Agency...is still awaiting additional information and permission to undertake additional visits...The Secretariat will continue its investigation of all relevant information available to it...The Director General will continue to report to the Board as appropriate."

In other words, they did not have the information, or access to the information, they required and remain twiddling their thumbs.

In presenting this report to the Board of Governors, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei discouraged the Board from moving the issue of Iran's non-compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to the Security Council. In his statement he said: "I still believe that robust verification by the Agency, combined with active dialogue among all concerned parties, is the best way to move forward."

Recall that the IAEA has found Iran to be in non-compliance with the NPT. In such circumstances its statute requires that the Governing "Board shall report the non-compliance to all members and to the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations."

So after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the Director General of the IAEA advocated flaunting the IAEA Statute, and the IAEA did just that.