
Sampling At Parchin
It looks like the much-discussed sampling at Iran’s Parchin military base has taken place. Or perhaps a preliminary set of samples. The IAEA and Iran remain tight-lipped on the details. Read More
It looks like the much-discussed sampling at Iran’s Parchin military base has taken place. Or perhaps a preliminary set of samples. The IAEA and Iran remain tight-lipped on the details. Read More
Kim Jong Un announced that he would close North Korea’s nuclear test site. The Trump administration has greeted this announcement as part of its success in dealing with North Korea.
But North Korea may be doing less than Trump thinks. Read More
This is pretty far down in the weeds, but it may help you to understand what is going on with the Trump administration and Iran.
Julian Borger summarizes Nikki Haley’s visit to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. The article is a good jumping-off place for what I’m going to say. Read More
The IAEA report on the possible military dimensions (PMD) of Iran’s nuclear program is out. It says that Iran had a coordinated program for investigating the development of a nuclear bomb until 2003, scattered experiments without a program structure until 2009, and nothing after 2009.
Here are my early observations. Read More
While the focus continues to be on whether or not we can trust Iran to meet their obligations under the IAEA safeguard agreement, the positive steps the Iranian government has made in the past two years seem to have been overlooked.
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Jeffrey Lewis and I discussed IAEA sampling at Iran’s Parchin military base and why Iran isn’t “inspecting itself” in a podcast at Arms Control Wonk. Read More
Back in August, the Associated Press published an article claiming that the IAEA would not oversee sampling at Iran’s Parchin site, where tests relating to nuclear weapons development are believed to have taken place. That claim, and the document said to support it, were not of the form that IAEA documents usually take, nor did it cover the material necessary for such a document. I said that here and described the kind of thing I would have expected to see, along with how IAEA might monitor sample-taking even if it were not on site.
The response was rapid and vehement on Twitter. AP reporters and editors, along with random others, attacked me and others who dared to question the story. They offered no further support for the story, nor did George Jahn, the author of the story, join in. Read More