Iran nuclear agreement satisfactory not ideal: Salehi

Press TV has conducted an interview with Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali-Akbar Salehi on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear agreement with the P5+1 group of countries.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: My first question to you – the nuclear deal. Now that you are looking at the developments over the past few months and the deal that was signed between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, are you completely satisfied with this deal? Do you think there was something that could have been done differently?

Salehi: Yes, I’m satisfied. Of course, it would have been much better if whatever I wished would have been accomplished, but I’m still satisfied because I have obtained whatever I thought is possible to obtain for our peaceful nuclear activities. So, if you compare it with an ideal situation, certainly it is not ideal, but if you are more pragmatic and think about it in a practical way, then yes I’m very much satisfied.

Press TV: What would be the ideal situation?

Salehi: It’s that we wouldn’t have had any fabricated nuclear file; that we wouldn’t even enter into negotiations with any party about our nuclear activities. That would have been the ideal. In other words, no such file, OK, no such negotiations at all, but now that this issue was raised and a negotiation started, I think, our team did its best and the result is very acceptable to us.

Press TV: As part of the nuclear deal, you had some nuclear exchange with Russia recently that you called very profitable for Iran. Is your organization going after any kind of nuclear business from this point on?

Salehi: This is one very good, I think, achievement within the (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) JCPOA that first our enrichment activity was recognized by the international community. By the international community, I mean the United Nations Security Council, which is very important. Probably we are one among the very few or probably the very exceptional countries that its enrichment activity has been recognized by an international body such as the UN Security Council. And one of the achievements within this framework is the fact that we were able to sell or we were, I mean, we got this opportunity to sell our enriched uranium and get in return natural uranium or the yellow cake. I think this was a very good deal. Now, we have entered the club of countries that have the capacity of enriching uranium and selling uranium on international market. Although the volume is very small, the principle of being able to make available to the international community your enriched uranium and then get in return yellow cake or the money [is good]. I mean we decided to get yellow cake. We could have gotten the money, I mean, the ordered price.

Press TV: Dr. Salehi, you were the foreign minister under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and at that time Iran spent a lot of money developing a nuclear industry that under President Rouhani that nuclear program was partially dismantled.

Salehi: We have maintained our nuclear industry. We still continue with our enrichment activities. We still continue with the construction of the heavy water Arak Research Reactor. We still continue our R&D on advanced centrifuge machines. We still continue our exploration of uranium and the mining of uranium. So, I don’t see what dismantling means. If dismantling means that we have reduced for a while, for a period of time, the number of centrifuges that is not dismantling, because previously we had about 20,000 centrifuges installed. Ten thousand of them were functioning, the other 10,000 were idle. OK, those idle centrifuges contributed nothing to enrichment, Ok, but those other 10,000 that were functioning and enriching uranium, the number has been reduced to something over 6,000 and that does not mean dismantling. We used to produce about 2400 kilograms of enriched uranium per year, now with this number of machines we will be able producing about probably 1400 kilograms per year. It’s only 1,000 kilograms less than what we used to produce, but then you will have to consider this with what we are expected to produce. Our expectation is to produce for the annual need of Bushehr [nuclear power plant] about 30,000 kilograms. So, what there you produce 2400 kilograms or 1400 kilograms. You are almost equidistant from the destination of 30,000 kilograms. It takes you a number of years to accumulate these enriched uraniums to be able to supply the annual need. But then we certainly would have to proceed to install about 1,090,000 SEUs of capacity for enrichment to be able to meet the annual need of Bushehr. The 1,090,000 SEU means 190,000 centrifuge machines of the kind of IR1, which we have now. And the size of Natanz is such that you cannot really install more than 50,000. So, you would have to produce another two more Natanz besides this Natanz with the IR1. So, even if we didn’t have this JCPOA, even if we didn’t have this nuclear deal, we would anyway, anyway we would have proceeded in the same line that we are proceeding now. In other words, to remove the inefficient centrifuges the IR1 and to replace them with efficient centrifuges or the advanced centrifuges such as IR8 about Arak, the Arak Research Reactor, as I in my first interview with you if you remember if you recall. I said that was a very old design. And we would have gone along with it, anyway, but that old design wouldn’t have make to us available all the possible tests that we could make with such a research reactor. Now an opportunity has come by to be able to modernize this Arak reactor and envision in it and see in it and embody in it many different possibilities of experimentations and tests that we can run with the new designed ... for Arak. So, for example one important characteristic that one really measures the quality or the efficiency of a research reactor is the flux of neutrons or the population of neutrons. In the old version and the new version the populations are very different. The new version the population is a number of times higher than the previous number of population of neutrons. In this way, you are able to introduce many other tests and you are able to produce radio isotopes and radio medicine that you were not able to produce with the previous design or if you would have been able to produce, it would have taken very long time. Now things are different. So, that is not dismantling as well. That is an upgrading. That is a modernization of the Arak reactor. So, I think that would have been the way anyway. So, this is the other. Exploration and mining, it is we are going as we did in the past. And the construction of nuclear power plants, as I have already stated, we hopefully within the next few months, we will be witnessing the launching of new reactors. And so, activities are going on, they are expanding even in some areas.

Press TV: Is Iran doing it by itself or it is seeking help?

Salehi: No, no, no, with the Russians. Yes, we have this agreement with Russians. We have the contracts signed between Iran and Russia to construct another two big reactors in Bushehr. And we will be launching the first of these two reactors, the new ones hopefully, the launching of the construction will be in few months time.

Press TV: When the nuclear deal was signed between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, a lot of people talked about your personal relationship with the US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and they said that you and Mr. Moniz, you made this deal possible, you ... the politicians agree on many points of this agreement. What do you say to them? Do you agree with that this personal relationship does exist or it helped JCPOA become reality?

Salehi: We didn’t know each other before. We had not seen each other in the sense that have some personal contacts in other words before. But we had a number of common friends. My supervisor Professor Driscoll happened to be one of his scientific supervisors. And few of my colleagues when I was a student at MIT happened to be also his advisors. So, those like my supervisor and my colleagues at MIT when I was student had talked about me to Professor Moniz. So, he had some, I would say, information about my personality and my background. As for me I only knew him through his position and a number of times that I attended the general conference in the IAEA, the annual general conference. And I had listened to his statements and I had followed some of his activities but nothing more than this. But we happened to be both in MIT, he as an academician as a young assistant professor at MIT at the time when I was a student doing my PHD, but we never met each other. Probably we had met each other, but we don’t recognize the meeting. By meeting, I mean, probably we have seen each other but without really noting it. So, this is another, I say, commonality that we were both in the same university at the same time. We are both basically university professors who have assumed political positions, he as secretary of the Department of Energy of the United States and me as the vice president and the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. But we are basically university professors. This is another commonality. We are not purely politicians. We are basically academicians who have assumed political positions. And thirdly, since the kind of negotiation we had with each other was a technical negotiation. So, in technical negotiation rationality prevails, I mean, you cannot speak, I’m sorry to say so nonsense in other words. So, you will have to, whatever you say, you have to take heed of what you say. You cannot just utter words. So, that also is very important, but what made our negotiation very sensitive and difficult is the fact that each one was trying to get the bigger portion of the cake. That is very natural, in other words, he did his best to get as much as he can and I did my best to take as much as I can. So, finally ...

Press TV: Which one took more?

Salehi: I think it was a win-win situation. We were able to maintain our enrichment. We were able to maintain the capacity of our heavy water production. We were able to upgrade our research reactor in Arak. And everything is there, except we accepted some limitations for a period of time as you just had it in your question and that was the reduction of our centrifuge machines for a period of time. And I told you that would had happened anyway, because we would have had to replace those IR1 machines with the new machines. There were some other limitations that we accepted that [are] not really harming our nuclear activities. For example, we have accepted not to reprocess plutonium for a period of time. We don’t have plutonium to reprocess anyway, now, because if one refers to the fuel of Bushehr that fuel according to an agreement will have to go back to Russia. So, that is not available to us to reprocess it. If you make a reference to the fuel of Tehran Research Reactor that is so small that is not worth it to reprocess it. And if you make a reference to Arak that is not yet operational to have any fuel ... fuel to reprocess it. So, anyway we will not for a period of time in a position to have this choice of reprocessing. So, we have accepted that limitation, that limitation would have been anyway in line with our activities, because we didn’t have anything to reprocess.

Press TV: If you look back at the talks, many months of talks, with the other side, you were one team and they were six teams in front of you, quite tough negotiations, would you call those talks more technical or more political?

Salehi: Well, I ... talks were really technical and very complicated, I think, and I would resemble our talks just like you are playing a chess with your counterpart. You will have to be very careful, cautious ...

Press TV: It was one person playing against six people?

Salehi: Yes, so you have to be very careful, cautious that you will not end up in a dead end. And I’m happy that this happened.

Press TV: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), I was talking with Hans Blix, he told me personally in a Press TV interview that IAEA director generals normally get weird phone calls, especially from the United States. He said from a host of countries and they have some demands and sometimes they expect the IAEA director general to do stuff for them. How independent, do you think, the current IAEA and its director general are?

Salehi: Well, I would have to really recognize the work of Mr. Amano and his colleagues. I think he personally and his colleagues did a great job especially in the past few months, especially when we both signed and adhered to the roadmap for the PMD. And I think from my experience, what I can say is that I wouldn’t really look much into the past, but looking the current developments, he did a great job. And I would like to thank him for this and I already did personally. And now we are entering into a new phase, I mean, our cooperation between Iran and the IAEA. We are now in a new phase and so, we are looking forward. And IAEA being the sole verifying body needs to keep its integrity and impartiality. Otherwise, its credibility will be questioned, because it’s not only us, there are a number of other countries who are members of the IAEA and everybody wants to see IAEA as impartial, fair and the sole verifying body that would do its business according to its, what do you call it, constitution or whatever.

Press TV: Why do you think the IAEA doesn’t go after Israel’s nuclear weapons? It knows that Israel has nuclear weapons and it knows that Israel is technically at war with all the regional countries. It’s been putting a lot of pressure on Iran over the past 13 years, I’m talking about the IAEA, but it’s not putting any pressure on Israel. Why do you think it is so?

Salehi: Well, I’m not in a position to speak on behalf of the IAEA. They do what they should do, I mean, of course we expect the IAEA to do as you have just stated that they put the pressure on all countries including the Zionist regime to heed to international call and to become a member of the NPT. And Iran has stated over and over its readiness to hold an international conference or meeting on the issue of demilitarizing or denuclearizing the Middle East or Middle East free of nuclear weapons. The only country that has this capacity in the Middle East is the Zionist regime. And I think this is incumbent upon the international community, if they are looking for the peace and tranquility in the region that they put the pressure on the Zionist regime to heed to this call. And well, I mean, it’s up to the IAEA to decide and I think to the best of my knowledge, there has been some voices in the IAEA that they have called for the Zionist regime to become a member of the NPT and to let inspections of their nuclear installations.

Press TV: A hard-line candidate is gaining momentum in the US presidential race, I’m talking about Donald Trump, some people are asking whether or not he would be able to torpedo Iran’s nuclear deal with P5+1?

Salehi: I don’t think so, the slogans, the jargons; the political positions that are taken by different potential use, candidates are different from what would really happen on the ground once they are in the White House. So, once they are in the White House, they will have to really stick to what is practical, I mean, the realities will enforce themselves upon whoever will be the incumbent president.

Press TV: The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty has 196 member states. There are eight countries including Iran, the United States, China, Israel, Egypt, India, Pakistan and North Korea that have not signed up to this treaty.

Salehi: We have signed up to the CTBT, but we have not ratified it. So, we have signed the CTBT, but we have not ...

Press TV: Are you planning to ratify the CTBT?

Salehi: That is up to the Parliament to decide and the government has signed up to it, but it’s up to the Parliament to ratify it. And I don’t know if the Parliament will give it a priority for ratification.

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