The Additional Protocol

In his recent report to the Board of Governors, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei states (under item 56) that Iran has expressed its readiness to implement the provisions of the Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the modified text of its Subsidiary Arrangements General Part, Code 3.1, “if the nuclear file is returned from the Security Council to the IAEA”.

It is an unprecedented opportunity for the UN Security Council to de-escalate this sensitive standoff, as CASMII states:

“Nuclear inspections by the IAEA have proven to be the best and only non-violent safeguard against nuclear weapons proliferation. No country in the world has been able to develop nuclear weapons while its programme has been under the inspections of the IAEA. In the case of Iraq, nearly the entire weapons program was exposed and neutralized in the 1990s through a rigorous inspection process.”

It’s high time now to take the chances and pursue peace through cooperation. Sanctions do not solve this kind of problems. As a memento, 13 years of UN sanctions led to the killing of half a million Iraqi children.

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