With the initial Iran Deal done, we are now looking forward to its implementation and verification. That means that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will have more work to do over the next six months. But what, exactly, will…
Because neither side has disclosed details, we don’t know for sure whether the roadmap Iran proposed to the P5+1 powers in Geneva in mid-October includes the future of the IR-40 reactor project. Iran’s counterparts have good reason to make sure…
Pakistani luminaries met with Chinese luminaries a few months ago, and their handshake will translate into a brand new 1,000-MW power reactor–Kanupp-2–being plunked down into the middle of Pakistan’s mega-metropolis Karachi. Maybe even two reactors. The unofficial announcement with details…
This little item was prompted by Andreas Persbo, executive director at Vertic, who yesterday afternoon filed a few comments to a post of mine on Facebook at the conclusion of the IAEA’s September Board of Governors meeting here in Vienna. I…
Near the end of what seemed a super-busy and seamless six-month transition from spring to fall without the respite of a summer silly season, a lighter tabloid moment arrived last week. The government of Zimbabwe proclaimed that a revelation in…
Hans Blix said a lot of things while Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency for 16 years, and one of them was this: “We cannot inspect every nook and cranny in a large country.” Before running the IAEA,…
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, is the most important player in decisions on Iran’s nuclear program. For anything that Iran’s new president-elect, Hassan Rouhani, may propose to the outside world to solve the Iranian nuclear crisis, we won’t…
When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established in 1957, its member states began putting flesh on the bones of the IAEA’s statutory verification mandate. Then “and for many years thereafter,” according to David Fischer’s seminal history, “there were no…
When the IAEA’s 35 governors arrived at the VIC last Monday for their quarterly June meeting, the stack of documents they picked up outside Boardroom C included the 2012 version of the Safeguards Implementation Report (SIR). The distribution to the…
What do we really know about Iran’s capability to reconvert triuranium octoxide (U3O8) enriched to 20% U-235 back into UF6 feedstock that can be further enriched to produce weapon-grade uranium? Can Iran do it? And if so, how fast? The…
