Israel Leverages Dubious ‘Nuclear Archives’ to Re-Enlist IAEA in Campaign Against Iran
The International Atomic Energy Agency has once again lent itself to the political interests of the United States and Israel, writes Gareth Porter.
The approval by the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of a June 19 resolution calling on Iran to comply fully with agency demands for cooperation marks a new stage in the long-running Israeli campaign to isolate Iran over alleged covert nuclear weapons activities.
The IAEA has demanded that Iran provide “clarifications” regarding “possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities,” as well as access to two sites in question.
Those demands are based on alleged Iranian documents that Israeli intelligence supposedly stole from Iran in 2018. And as The Grayzone has previously reported, their authenticity is highly questionable, and their purported theft may have never occurred.
Israeli Pressure with US Help
The latest phase of the Iran crisis erupted in June 2018, when the Israeli government informed the IAEA that its intelligence services had discovered a new “secret atomic warehouse” in the Turquzabad district of Tehran.
In his September 2018 United Nations speech announcing the find, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu subsequently demanded that IAEA director general, Yukio Amano, “do the right thing. Go inspect this atomic warehouse, immediately, before the Iranians finish clearing it out.”
Amano pushed back publicly against the Israeli pressure in October 2018, asserting his independence from Netanyahu’s agenda. Under his watch, the IAEA also failed to accede to Israel’s demand to publicize documents from the “archive” they had provided.
When Brian Hook, a neoconservative operative serving as the U.S. State Department’s lead official on isolating Iran, visited Israel in November 2018, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s political director told him his government was furious with the IAEA for failing to take the documents seriously.
Hook assured the Israelis that the Donald Trump administration would apply pressure on the IAEA to take action. He assigned the new U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, a protege of John Bolton named Jackie Walcott, as his point person.
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https://consortiumnews.com/2020/06/29/israel-leverages-dubious-nuclear-archives-to-re-enlist-iaea-in-campaign-against-iran/