The head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said Tuesday his agency will need an additional $10.5 million a year to meet new requirements to verify Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful under a deal worked out between Tehran and major world powers.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano spoke at a news conference after the agency’s board voted to formally implement the deal, along with the confidential side agreements that detail how Iran will resolve questions about past nuclear work widely believed to have been focused on developing a weapon.
He said the additional money would go to hire more inspectors to work in Iran, along with additional equipment necessary to meet what he called “the most robust safeguard regime in the current world.”
“We will need more inspectors,” but “it will not be a dramatic increase,” he said. “Verification is not done only by inspectors. We have the cameras, we have the seals and we have advanced technology.”
The IAEA’s request for more money was an expected result of the agreement signed July 14 in Vienna between Iran and six major world powers: the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. Under the deal, the agency is required to certify that Iran has accounted for past concerns about its nuclear work by Dec. 15 as a condition of relieving sanctions. The IAEA also will have an ongoing responsibility to verify that Iran’s nuclear program continues to be peaceful under the deal.
But the request may run into trouble in Washington. The United States is the IAEA’s chief funder, providing about a third of the agency’s budget, and some members of Congress want to use that as leverage to force the agency to share the confidential side arrangements worked out with Iran.
Lawmakers are set to vote in mid-September on whether to approve the broader nuclear deal, and say access to those side deals are crucial to making an informed decision.
Amano has refused to share them, though he did brief members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on their contents on Aug. 5. The Obama administration has backed the agency, telling lawmakers the United States has no right to see them.
But those concerns have been fueled since the Associated Press, citing a draft copy of a part of the side deal it obtained, reported last week that Iran would be allowed to use its own inspectors at the Parchin military base, where the United States and other nations believe illicit nuclear weapons work was done in the past. This is a highly unusual step that has been criticized by former U.N. arms inspectors since the AP story broke.
In a meeting with reporters Monday, Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, called the elaborate scheme to get around the denial of access for international inspectors to Parchin a “Rube Goldberg device” that would set a bad precedent for the future.
“It’s about the political pressure that will be brought to bear,” he said, noting that he has not received a straight answer on whether IAEA inspectors will have access to military sites under the broader nuclear agreement.
“When we got into a fight about Parchin, how did we resolve it? We resolved it without the IAEA having access to that facility,” he said. “My guess is this is about as good as we will ever do at a military site.”
Amano again refused to either confirm the accuracy of the AP report or share details of the arrangement with Parchin in his news conference Tuesday, but he denied that the arrangement sets a bad precedent.
“The separate arrangement related to Parchin is an agreement made under particular circumstances on a specific issue,” he said. “The access issue should be addressed case by case. The important element is it should be technically sound.”
