Timeline for How is JCPOA compliance monitored?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 20, 2020 at 15:29 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | @Ben - Your previous comment - "The very sites where we might expect nuclear militarisation research to be taking place - military facilities" - you don't state anything especially "nuclear" about their military facilities, just that they are military facilities. | |
| Jan 17, 2020 at 23:20 | comment | added | 52d6c6af | "No, any military site would not be suspected of nuclear activity." Show me where I made that claim. Thank you. | |
| Jan 16, 2020 at 19:48 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | Yes, Iran signed an agreement. And they never denied access to any site. Not sure why you keep ignoring that. Saying, hypothetically, that they'd deny access, and then never, ever, ever, ever denying access to any site requested is full compliance. Ever heard the term "actions speak louder than words?" They have granted full access, as they agreed to/signed onto. You claim that them stating that they might not makes them somehow out of compliance and the agreement a sham, but you can't point to a single instance of denied access, because there are none. | |
| Jan 16, 2020 at 19:45 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | @Ben - the crux if the issue is actually that JCPOA was the most intrusive and comprehensive verification program ever agreed to for any nation, ever, and the IAEA has a pretty well established track record of being right when questions arise (the same claims were made about Iraq, I seem to recall). No, any military site would not be suspected of nuclear activity. Would Ft. Hood? Camp Pendleton? There are specific types of activity which makes a site a likely suspect. And, no, it's not that the US was rebuffed in anything legitimate. We exited because it was an Obama agreement. Period. | |
| Jan 15, 2020 at 20:00 | comment | added | 52d6c6af | The crux of the issue is this: the JCPOA merely gave a veneer of compliance. The very sites where we might expect nuclear militarisation research to be taking place - military facilities - have not been directly inspected by independent observers under the JCPOA compliance regime. The US was unhappy about this state of affairs, and, after pushing one last time for inspections of these sites - and being rebuffed - they exited the agreement. | |
| Jan 15, 2020 at 19:55 | comment | added | 52d6c6af | Iran signed an agreement giving access to all sites. They then, incongruently, repeatedly stated that their military sites were off-limits. Call it bluster or rhetoric or playing to their base; it's still incongruent. As a result, a separate, private agreement was necessary between the IAEA and Iran for the monitoring of their Parchin military complex so that the Iranian's could supply the evidence themselves via videotape. Finally: the US pushed for IAEA access to military sites before it left the agreement. It then left when this effort was unsuccessful. | |
| Jan 15, 2020 at 19:42 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | @Ben - Yes, and Iran NEVER DENIED ACCESS TO SITES under JCPOA. The noises they made about not allowing access to sites was not in response to IAEA requests, but from Trump Administration bluster and complaints, so I'm not sure why you the fact that they signed the agreement, which they fully complied with, is relevant to their responding to complaints from a party that pulled out of the agreement, when that party, as outsiders, were agitating for actions outside of the agreement. | |
| Jan 15, 2020 at 17:27 | comment | added | 52d6c6af | JCPOA is much wider than a ban on nuclear testing (which is easily detected remotely). Whether it is reasonable or not to deny access to highly secure sites is confounded by the fact that Iran signed the agreement which places no limits on the sites that may be accessed. The JCPOA provides for an independent IAEA compliance monitoring team - note NOT "the Americans" - specifically for the reasons you give. Furthermore this team is under strict security instructions regaarding state secrets. Again, for the reasons you give. | |
| Jan 15, 2020 at 17:11 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | @Ben - there are tell-tale signs of activities, structures and information about sites that leads the IAEA to have suspicions about possible sites. Iran is heavily under surveillance by any number of USA agencies, and many of our allies, all of whom would be happy to point out suspicious activity. None of the US demands for more access have included any kind of relevant intelligence being shared. It's not that we wouldn't know if there was suspicious activity that needed to be confirmed. We knew, without North Korea sharing, that they were continuing with tests at sites, for example. | |
| Jan 15, 2020 at 17:08 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | @Ben - Let's say Iran had a military site, which had no nuclear activity, but, as a military site, they felt was pretty sensitive to their security, and would especially not want US personnel to get information about it, given the bellicose nature of the USA-Iran relationship, both ways. Would it be reasonable for them to not want to give access to sensitive sites, especially if there is nothing about them related to nuclear activity? If "yes," why would their desire not to give their enemies carte blanche to all their most sensitive sites automatically trigger a need nuke-check them? | |
| Jan 15, 2020 at 0:46 | comment | added | 52d6c6af | OK thanks. I guess "we don't know what we don't know" - and this is the crux of my question. In order to check compliance, inspection teams necessarily need to be able to go where they want - and they won't necessarily have a reason for doing so beyond "it's a military base in a mountain". A thorough search for a hidden item will necessarily involve some educated guesses. The easy places to search are "obviously" going to be in compliance. So here we have Iran denying access to military sites, which presumably engender reasonable suspicion, and are therefore suitable inspection targets. | |
| Jan 15, 2020 at 0:39 | comment | added | 264 champagne bottles on ice | @Ben: if you're talking about this story it also said "Under the deal, the IAEA can request access to Iranian sites including military ones if it has concerns about activities there that violate the agreement, but it must show Iran the basis for those concerns. That means new and credible information pointing to such a violation is required first, officials from the agency and major powers say. There is no indication that Washington has presented such information to back up its call for inspections of Iranian military sites." | |
| Jan 14, 2020 at 23:58 | comment | added | 52d6c6af | By August 2017, Iran had "repeatedly stated'[1] that access would not be granted for IAEA inspectors to their military sites. The question might then become - given that at least one such site was known to have been a nuclear research facility prior to the agreement, why did the IAEA not choose to inspect it (at which point a refusal would have put Iran in non-compliance of the JCPOA)? [1] eg. Iranian regime’s Financial Tribune on August 23, 2017 | |
| Jan 14, 2020 at 22:46 | history | answered | PoloHoleSet | CC BY-SA 4.0 |