NCRI – Any agreement reached between the six world powers and the Iranian regime to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for gradual lifting of economic sanctions should provide the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog with access to all nuclear sites, a former U.N. nuclear inspector says.
Olli Heinonen, former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in an interview on Sunday that even with the current implementation of an interim international deal with Iran, the regime is still capable of assembling a nuclear weapon “within months.”
Heinonen who previously served as IAEA’s head of the Department of Safeguards said the Iranian regime has an “unfortunate history of misleading and not disclosing all its nuclear material.”
“There are a lot of things we don’t know,” he said, adding the AEA does not have a complete picture of Iranian regime’s nuclear activities since inspectors have not been allowed to visit some nuclear sites.
“The IAEA has not been able to verify what is called the completeness of Iran’s declaration. It has only verified that which has been presented. But it has not been able to make an historical assessment (of) how much uranium has been produced in Iran over these years.”
Heinonen explained that Iran’s current nuclear infrastructure puts it far ahead of other countries in the region that may consider starting a nuclear program and warned that any move by the regime in Tehran to follow in the footsteps of North Korea by obtaining nuclear weapons could trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
He warned that the clerical regime “can do certain things within few months. At least to have a kind of primitive nuclear explosive. And it puts Iran into a very different file because it has this capability. And it’s always looming there.”
He said Tehran could presently assemble a nuke within months.