Iran’s Former Atomic Agency Chief Criticizes the Geneva Agreement

Rooz Online

As the former head of Iran’s atomic energy agency criticized the November 24th interim Geneva agreement between Iran and P5+1, and Hassan Rouhani’s diplomacy, eleven hardline principlist members of Iran’s parliament, the Majlis, presented a bill to the presiding board requiring the government to increase uranium enrichment to 60 percent purity if the West intensified its sanctions against Iran, but the plan was criticized by a senior Majlis leader. At the same time, the current head of Iran’s atomic energy agency announced that work on the Arak heavy water reactor is continuing. In a related development, the former head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency declared Iran’s nuclear program to be a danger for peace.

Fereidun Abbasi Davani, the former head of Iran’s atomic energy agency was among the first officials of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration to be removed from office when Hassan Rouhani assumed the presidency earlier this year. Now he sees it appropriate to criticize the November 24th Geneva accord and Rouhani’s diplomacy.

Speaking to a principlist website, Farhang News, he implicitly said that Iran’s current nuclear negotiators were naïve. “If some acted simplistically in the nuclear issue and believe that being passive would bring about an agreement, they are seriously mistaken. Being passive in policy to gain nothing, results in receiving heavy hits in the thought process,” he said.

Davani is a nuclear specialist on whom assassination attempts were made between 2009 and 2011 by individuals who are said in Iran to have gone to Tehran by Israel to take our Iran’s nuclear scientists. He is the only person who survived actual assassination attempts while being injured in a blast. He was subsequently appointed to head Iran’s atomic energy agency by Ahmadinejad. “I am not optimistic about the Geneva agreement because what the West desires at the bottom of its heart is that we have nothing regarding nuclear knowledge and technology,” he said.

He does not believe that the current agreement includes step-by-step give-and-take provisions because, in his view, Rouhan’s administration has already given a lot of concessions to the West. “In reality, there is nothing else left for us to give in order to get something from the West. We have shut the Arak reactor, we have stopped enrichment of 20 percent uranium purity, enrichment has been reduced to less than five percent, and we have become vulnerable. We are not allowed to increase the number of our centrifuges and the new generation of centrifuges cannot be installed. The next stop is probably for us to stop five percent enrichment,” he continued.

During Davani’s leadership of the atomic energy, Iran had the worst relations with the UN nuclear watchdog IAEA which resulted in the IAEA director’s strong criticism against Iran’s nuclear program. Davani played a key role in creating that situation and accused the inspector of the watchdog of striving to sabotage Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Along with Davani’s criticism, a significant number of principlist Majlis representatives have launched an initiative to force Rouhani’s administration to enrich uranium up to 60 percent purity level. Iran’s news agencies announced that the draft bill for this had been signed by some 100 representatives and submitted to the head of the assembly to be put on its agenda for a vote. The plan provides that it would go into effect – if approved and passed by the Majlis – only if the West “increases its pressure on the Islamic republic.”

Seyed Mehdi Mousavinejad, a member of the energy committee that drafted the bill has said, “According to this plan, if sanctions are increased and Iran’s peaceful nuclear rights are ignored, the administration is required to launch the Arak heavy water nuclear reactor and raise the uranium enrichment process to 60 percent purity to meet the needs of the country’s submarines.”

A Member of the Presiding Board of the Majlis: Good but not Right

But the plan is opposed even by some principlists in the Majlis. Hossein Sobhani is one of them and he is a member of the leadership of the assembly. Speaking with ISNA student news agency, he said, “Under the current situation, it is not right to require the administration to increase the uranium enrichment level to 60 percent purity and it gives an excuse to the other party.” Sobhani believes that it is good that the lawmakers should require the government to increase the level of enrichment if the other side reneges on its commitments, but adds, “But this issue should be put into a law. This is the wrong way to do it because it takes away our leverage.”

Under the current Geneva agreement, Iran is required to get rid of its stock of 20 percent enriched uranium by diluting half of it to no more than 5 percent purity while converting the rest to a form that cannot be enriched any further. It also loses its right to enrich uranium up to 20 percent purity and stop any additional work on the Natanz Fardow and Arak facilities. It is also forbidden from creating new enrichment facilities.

Salehi: Arak Plant to Continue its Work

But despite this, the head of Iran’s nuclear energy agency Ali Akbar Salehi told Jame Jam’s satellite network (Iran’s state-run national radio and television network) that “the Arak heavy water reactor is continuing its work.” When questioned about the Geneva agreement’s provisions on this, he said, “It has been agreed, based on their demands that the installation of major new equipment there would be done with deliberations. Other work however is continuing right now.” He did not specify which activities are currently continuing at Arak.

One of the issues that turned into headlines after the Geneva agreement was work at Arak’s heavy water plant. Foreign minister Javad Zarif also announced, soon after the Geneva arrangement, that “construction” at Arak would continue. Experts have said that there is a loop hole in the Geneva agreement on this that allows Iran to construct equipment and parts outside the Arak plant and then install them on the nuclear plant at the facility. It is not clear whether Zarif was referring to this type of work or not.

Tehran has said that the Arak heavy water plant can be made operational next year and asserts that the purpose of the plant is to produce isotopes necessary for medical purposes while the West says the plant will produce plutonium which is a material that can be used in nuclear weapons to split uranium.

Turki bin Faisal al Saud: Iran’s Nuclear Program a Major Danger

Amid the developments in Iran and in Western capitals on the nuclear issue, the influential former director of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency published a note for the final days of 2013 in which he views Iran’s nuclear program to be a major threat. Currently the head of a research think tank in Saudi Arabia, Turki wrote, “Iran’s efforts to produce nuclear weapons are a major threat and if the issue is not addressed it can result in the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. For example, should Iran acquire such capability, the Gulf Cooperation Council would be forced to examine ways to acquire nuclear deterrence capability.”

In addition to being the former head of the country’s intelligence agency, Turki is also the youngest son of the late King Faisal and former ambassador to the UK and the US, and has publicly expressed his regret that international sanctions against Iran had not changed the nuclear policy of the Islamic republic and has raised the question: “If Rouhani fails to bring a change in this regard, what next?” He has also said that Arab oil states should be directly included in the nuclear talks with Iran.

Saudi Arabia and Israel are mentioned as the two countries who have indicated the strongest opposition to the November 24th interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1 major Western countries on Iran’s nuclear program.