{"id":248486,"date":"2021-10-06T03:31:22","date_gmt":"2021-10-06T08:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=248486"},"modified":"2023-02-01T04:41:13","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T03:41:13","slug":"new-head-of-irans-nuclear-agency-shows-ongoing-commitment-to-deceptive-strategies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/nuclear\/new-head-of-irans-nuclear-agency-shows-ongoing-commitment-to-deceptive-strategies\/","title":{"rendered":"New Head of Iran\u2019s Nuclear Agency Shows Ongoing Commitment to Deceptive Strategies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mohammad-eslami-iran-parliament\"<\/p>\n

By Alejo Vidal-Quadras\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Sunday, Russian state news agency Sputnik published an interview with Mohammad Eslami<\/a>, the new head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Eslami hit a number of extremely familiar points when commenting upon the status and the future of Iran\u2019s nuclear program and the seven-party nuclear agreement that remains on life support pending negotiations in Vienna that are aimed at re-implementing it.<\/p>\n

Those negotiations have been stalled since June when Ebrahim Raisi was \u201celected<\/a>\u201d as the new Iranian president. The overwhelming majority of Iranian citizens boycotted that election, but Raisi\u2019s victory was orchestrated in advance by higher authorities.<\/p>\n

Raisi\u2019s promotions were widely recognized as part of a process whereby Khamenei has been consolidating power among a small set of ultra-loyal and ultra-hardline officials<\/a>. As such, the Raisi administration is expected to preside over an upsurge in Iran\u2019s malign activities, including its activities related to nuclear enrichment and the potential acquisition of nuclear weapons. The regime\u2019s statements and actions over the past few months have largely justified these expectations, as have independent assessments such as the latest quarterly reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency.<\/p>\n

When those reports were released in September, the IAEA estimated that Iran had increased its stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium by more than one-third since May, from 62.8 kg to 84.3 kg. The reports also noted that at least 10 kg of uranium had been enriched to 60 percent<\/a>, putting it only a very short technical step away from weapons-grade.<\/p>\n

\"Weekly-Signe-up-logo-1\"<\/p>\n

Sputnik directly asked Eslami about a series of disputes and in each case, Eslami rejected the relevant criticism as a product of Western conspiracies but offered no evidence to suggest that the allegations were false. In one case, Eslami was asked about the presence of nuclear material at three undisclosed sites that were the focus of one of the IAEA\u2019s latest reports. He responded<\/a> by calling the content of those reports \u201cfalse news\u201d and blaming them on outdated information furnished by exiled members of the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI\/MEK), the leading Iranian opposition group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe IAEA, as an international body, should not fall for these tricks and become a puppet in the hands of this terrorist group\u201d, he said. But regardless of the role the MEK played in bringing attention to the undisclosed sites in the first place, Eslami\u2019s comments simply ignore the fact that it was Iranian authorities themselves who collected soil samples of those sites after demolishing and attempting to sanitize them. It was in those samples that the IAEA found traces of nuclear material, thereby confirming that at one time there was more nuclear activity ongoing in Iran than anyone had realized.<\/p>\n

This fact leaves open the possibility that there is still more Iranian nuclear activity ongoing than has been exposed in IAEA reports. The traces of material at Parchin<\/a> and other undeclared sites represent radioactive substances that are not accounted for and may still be circulating among known or unknown Iranian facilities. This gap in knowledge poses a threat to international security, and that threat has only intensified since Iran began systematically violating the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action following the US withdrawal from that deal in 2018.<\/p>\n

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Iran: MEK Revelations Played Key Role in Preventing Mullahs to Get Nuclear Bomb<\/div><\/div>
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