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IAEA report sought to avoid admission of past mistakes: Analyst

Thursday, 03 December 2015 9:56 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 03 December 2015 9:57 AM ]

The flag of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) flies in front of its headquarters during a board of governors meeting in Vienna. (Photo by Reuters)

Press TV has interviewed Gareth Porter, an investigative journalist in Washington, to discuss a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), stating that it has found no indications of possible military dimensions (PMD) in Iran's nuclear program.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How do you react to this latest report of the IAEA?

Porter: What the IAEA has clearly done in this report is to reconcile two very different interests. On one hand, the interest of the IAEA in essentially not having to admit that it was wrong in its 2011 report which compiled a set of intelligence claims from Israel in particular, primarily overwhelmingly from Israel, which I have said many times have shown in the past that these were quite fallacious and not authentic and at the same time to try to accommodate the need of the United States and its allies to make sure that this report did not do anything to make it impossible to go ahead with the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

And so I think what they have done essentially is to come out with a rather ambiguous set of formulations which does not admit to having been wrong on any of the charges that they published in the 2011 report but at the same time to not charge Iran with anything that could be deemed to stand in the way of the completion of the implementation of the JCPOA.

Press TV: So where do we go from here, when we have that meeting on December the 15th? What do you think the conclusion will be?

Porter: Well I think that the Board of Governors will in fact conclude that the JCPOA can go ahead and I do not know if [they] say the file should be closed but I do not think they will say that the IAEA must continue to look for evidence that Iran was working on a nuclear weapon in the past, has worked on nuclear weapons in the past. I think that they will at least forego any language that will suggest that there is anything in the past record that requires the IAEA to continue to investigate the past.

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