page_title: Negotiations leading to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
section_title: IAEA inspection
hierarchical_section_title: Negotiations leading to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action / IAEA inspection
caption_attribution_description: English: 50th Munich Security Conference 2014: Yukiya Amano and Mohamad Javad Zarif: Yukiya Amano (Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency) and Mohamad Javad Zarif (Minister of Foreign Affairs, Islamic Republic of Iran).
context_page_description: The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is an agreement signed in Vienna on 14 July 2015 between Iran and the P5+1. The agreement is a comprehensive agreement on the nuclear program of Iran.
  The agreement is based on the 24 November 2013 Geneva interim framework agreement, officially titled the Joint Plan of Action. The Geneva agreement was an interim deal, in which Iran agreed to roll back parts of its nuclear program in exchange for relief from some sanctions and that went into effect on 20 January 2014. The parties agreed to extend their talks with a first extension deadline on 24 November 2014 and a second extension deadline set to 1 July 2015.
  Based on the March/April 2015 negotiations on Iran nuclear deal framework, completed on 2 April 2015, Iran agreed tentatively to accept significant restrictions on its nuclear program, all of which would last for at least a decade and some longer, and to submit to an increased intensity of international inspections under a framework deal. These details were to be negotiated by the end of June 2015. On 30 June the negotiations on a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action were extended under the Joint Plan of Action until 7 July 2015.
context_section_description: The International Atomic Energy Agency inspected Iran's nuclear facilities several times annually since 2007, publishing from one to four reports each year. According to multiple resolutions of the United Nations Security Council (resolutions 1737, 1747, 1803, and 1929), enacted under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, Iran is obligated to cooperate fully with the IAEA on "all outstanding issues, particularly those which give rise to concerns about the possible military dimensions of the Iranian nuclear programme, including by providing access without delay to all sites, equipment, persons and documents requested by the IAEA. ..." On 11 November 2013 the IAEA and Iran signed a Joint Statement on a Framework for Cooperation committing both parties to cooperate and resolve all present and past issues in a step by step manner. As a first step, the Framework identified six practical measures to be completed within three months. The IAEA reported that Iran had implemented those six measures in time. In February and May 2014 the parties agreed to additional sets of measures related to the Framework. In September the IAEA continued to report that Iran was not implementing its Additional Protocol, which is a prerequisite for the IAEA "to provide assurance about both declared and possible undeclared activities." Under those circumstances, the Agency reported it will not be able to provide "credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran".
  The implementation of interim Geneva Accord has involved transparency measures and enhanced monitoring to ensure the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program. It was agreed that the IAEA will be "solely responsible for verifying and confirming all nuclear-related measures, consistent with its ongoing inspection role in Iran". IAEA inspection has included daily access to Natanz and Fordow and managed access to centrifuge production facilities, uranium mines and mills, and the Arak heavy water reactor. To implement these and other verification steps, Iran committed to "provide increased and unprecedented transparency into its nuclear program, including through more frequent and intrusive inspections as well as expanded provision of information to the IAEA."
  Thus, there have been two ongoing diplomatic tracks—one by the P5+1 to curb Iran's nuclear program and a second by the IAEA to resolve questions about the peaceful nature of Iran's past nuclear activities. Although the IAEA inquiry has been formally separate from JPA negotiations, Washington said a successful IAEA investigation should be part of any final deal and that may be unlikely by the deadline of 24 November 2014.
  One expert on Iran's nuclear program, David Albright, has explained that "It's very hard if you are an IAEA inspector or analyst to say we can give you confidence that there's not a weapons program today if you don't know about the past. Because you don't know what was done. You don't know what they accomplished." Albright argued that this history is important since the "infrastructure that was created could pop back into existence at any point in secret and move forward on nuclear weapons."
  Iranian and IAEA officials met in Tehran on 16 and 17 August 2014 and discussed the five practical measures in the third step of the Framework for Cooperation agreed in May 2014. Yukiya Amano, Director General of the IAEA, made a one-day visit to Tehran on 17 August and held talks with President of Iran Hassan Rouhani and other senior officials. After the visit Iranian media criticized the IAEA while reporting that President Rouhani and the head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Salehi both tried "to make the IAEA chief Mr. Amano understand that there is an endpoint to Iran's flexibility." The same week Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said that Iran will not give IAEA inspectors access to Parchin military base. Yukiya Amano has noted previously that access to the Parchin base was essential for the Agency to be in position to certify Iran's nuclear programme as peaceful. Tehran
caption: Yukiya Amano and Mohammad Javad Zarif
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