Decoding Iran's 'Secret' Agreements with the Agency

The unpublished agreements between the Agency and Iran became a key topic during the second session reviewing the comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran in the Senate, hosted by the Armed Services Committee. The issue of undisclosed nuclear agreements and the manner of inspections of military sites has recently raised heightened sensitivities in Iran and among conservative opponents of the agreement, under the pretext of compromising national security and defense capabilities. Last Friday, Reza Najafi, Iran's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warned that "the disclosure of 'confidential arrangements' of the nuclear agreement with the 1+5 group would negatively impact its implementation." In another reaction to developments related to the secret parts of the Vienna nuclear agreement, Ali Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, during a television program on Sunday night, provided vague explanations regarding the terms of the agreement, implicitly confirming that "the results of the Agency's investigations into Iran's past nuclear activities (suspected of having military dimensions) will remain confidential. Due to the special importance of the unpublished annexes of the agreements, which have been kept out of reach even from lawmakers of the negotiating countries, a week before the official start of the Senate review, Mike Pompeo, a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Kansas, and Tom Cotton, a senator from Arkansas and Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, traveled to Vienna, the IAEA's headquarters, and met with Amano, the Secretary-General, to discuss this matter. Both American lawmakers have military service backgrounds and are members of committees related to armed forces and intelligence in the House and Senate. On Wednesday, April 30, less than two months before the deadline for the nuclear negotiations, Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, emphasized in a gathering of the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during a graduation ceremony for officer students that, "as previously stated, no inspections of any military sites and no discussions with nuclear scientists and other sensitive fields will be allowed." He also stated, "I will not allow foreigners to come and speak with the scientists and esteemed children of this nation and interrogate them." Since 2011, the IAEA has requested visits and sampling from the Parchin military site, claiming that based on information received from a member country, Iran conducted high-explosive tests and neutron initiator firing at the mentioned location to build a nuclear bomb trigger. Numerous satellite images, particularly those published by a reputable strategic studies institute in Washington over the past three years, indicate extensive excavations, soil washing, and even construction at the site suspected of conducting dubious tests in Parchin. Previously, extensive information was also released by a person named Vyacheslav Danilenko, a technical expert involved in Ukraine's nuclear side efforts and a specialist in synthetic diamond production, regarding his direct participation in the design and construction of the explosive capsule needed for neutron firing in the Arak industrial complex and subsequently transporting and installing it in Parchin before 2003. The International Strategic Studies Center published a special book based on discussions with Danilenko and also information released by his son, detailing Iran's actions to build a nuclear trigger. However, Iran has insisted that it has never sought to build a nuclear bomb and cites the fatwa of the Islamic Republic's leader declaring the pursuit of nuclear weapons as impermissible. At the same time, Iranian officials do not allow visits and sampling from the soil of Parchin. The issue of visiting Parchin, which is considered part of the necessary verification to reach an agreement with Iran and lift sanctions, gradually gained so much importance during the negotiations that it practically jeopardized the outcome of Iran's political discussions with the 1+5 group. Although the U.S. was confident that Iran's past nuclear activities had military dimensions, it remained determined to reach an agreement with Iran to limit its nuclear program without resorting to military force. During the final stages of negotiations, with a clear retreat from previous positions to save the nuclear talks from failure, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stated on June 16, "We are not focused on what Iran has done in the past. We have no doubt and are certain of what military programs they had. But now it is important for us to look to the future." It seems that the solution found to change the method of inspection of Parchin was structured in such a way that the responsibility for soil sampling at Parchin would be carried out by Iran instead of Agency inspectors, and the samples would be delivered to the Agency for testing, on the condition that the test results would not be disclosed and would remain part of the Agency's confidential files. To confirm this part of the secret agreement with Tehran, Yukiya Amano, the Secretary-General of the Agency, traveled to Tehran on July 1 and expressed his agreement on the subject during a meeting with Hassan Rouhani and Ali Akbar Salehi. However, no official report was released regarding the topics discussed with Amano and the reason for his unexpected visit to Tehran. In response to this part of the Vienna agreement, which could effectively eliminate the verification of "the past nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic," Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated that accepting sampling by Iran and delivering it to the Agency is like "asking a fox to guard the chickens." The content of the two areas of the secret agreement, based on the discussions raised in the Armed Services Committee, official statements, and unofficial remarks by the U.S. Secretary of State, as well as materials published on Mike Pompeo's personal website after his trip to Vienna and discussions with Amano, as well as statements by Senator Tom Cotton, makes it clear that the secret nuclear agreement with Tehran has been made in two areas: 1- The method of conducting inspections of Parchin and the method of soil sampling. 2- The manner of Iran's continued cooperation with the Agency regarding verification of activities suspected of having military dimensions. Undoubtedly, in this case, the Islamic Republic, while obtaining satisfactory concessions from the U.S., has also granted them concessions and accepted commitments that contradict the previously declared red lines, especially by Mr. Ali Khamenei and the commanders of the IRGC. The U.S. government, due to the sensitivities of Republican Congress members and opposition from Israel, is also reluctant to show flexibility towards the Islamic Republic and change priorities from addressing Iran's past nuclear activities (verification) to imposing limitations on future nuclear activities, thus making the nuclear agreement more susceptible to criticism. The remarks of three prominent members of Congress regarding the secret nuclear agreement with Tehran summarize the views of opponents of the nuclear agreement in Congress and the majority representatives' inclination to reject the terms of the agreement in the current situation. Senator John McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, says, "The government is asking us to vote on an agreement of which we are unaware of the contents." Pompeo, a member of the House of Representatives, says, "This agreement is the worst form of reaching an interaction in the henhouse. The Obama administration is unable to disclose the subject of the parallel agreement with Iran that was made for visiting the Parchin military complex. This approach not only contradicts the provisions of the law reviewing the nuclear agreement with Iran but also requires Congress to approve an agreement that it cannot review." Senator Tom Cotton states, "By withholding the secret parts of the nuclear agreements with Iran, the Obama administration is asking Congress and the American people to support a pact whose contents they cannot review. What we cannot do is support and believe in a regime that supports terrorism and is opposed to the U.S. Keeping parts of the agreement secret raises the question of whether other parts have also been kept secret and are not accessible to us."