Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 3
By Saeed Isayev - Trend:
The fact that a lot of money is being invested in the work of IAEA with regards to Iran's nuclear program, indicates that Iran's nuclear infrastructure is very advanced, chairman of the Centre for Iranian Studies at SOAS, University of London and author of "On the Arab revolts and the Iranian revolution: Power and resistance today", Arshin Adib-Moghaddam told Trend.
"The work of IARA in Iran is the most intrusive compared to any country in human history," he said. "The fact that it is so expensive is another evidence for that."
The IAEA has asked for more funding from the UN member states for checking Iran with the last year's nuclear deal with P5+1.
In a confidential report to member states, the IAEA estimated the increased workload would cost around 6 million euros ($8.2 million). The agency's regular budget for 2014 is 344 million euros. Roughly a third is for nuclear safeguards inspections, with those in Iran already among the agency's costliest undertakings.
"I don't think costs will be a stumbling block; indeed the diplomatic track that the United States and Iran have embarked upon requires the reassurances from the IAEA," Abib-Moghaddam said.
"The key to peace may lie in the hands of IAEA, so they better be equipped well to be able to gather evidence on the ground," he said.
"Of course, how that evidence is then interpreted and processed politically is a totally different matter," the analyst added.
At the same time, Senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, James M. Dorsey believes that funding is unlikely to be an issue even if the amounts go up.
"For that, the stakes and the cost of the alternative, including potential military action, are far too high," he told Trend. "Moreover, all parties, the UN, the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany and Iran have a significant interest in ensuring that agreements are executed and implemented."
Dorsey noted that Iran indeed is without doubt the most intrusive and extensive monitoring operation being undertaken by the IAEA.
"As a result, it will come to no one as a surprise that there is additional cost which in the larger scale of things is a relatively small amount," he said.
It should be noted that Iran and the P5+1 reached a nuclear agreement on Nov. 24. Iran has agreed to curb some of its nuclear activities for six months in return for sanctions relief. Both Iran and the P5+1 group have agreed to implement the agreement starting from Jan. 20.
Under the agreement, six major powers agreed to give Iran access to $4.2 billion in revenues blocked overseas if it carries out the deal, which offers sanctions relief in exchange for steps to curb the Iranian nuclear program.
The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon - something that Iran denies. The Islamic Republic has on numerous occasions stated that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, using nuclear energy for medical researches instead.
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