Iran

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors passed a resolution Sept. 13 calling on Iran to “immediately conclude and implement” an agreement with the agency to resolve the “outstanding issues related to possible military dimensions” of the country’s nuclear activities.

After years of denying any need to respond to international concerns about suspected nuclear weaponization work, Iran finally engaged in discussions earlier this year with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on a plan to address its alleged weapons-related activities. After months of on-and-off talks, however, Iran has still refused to agree to the IAEA's proposal for a "structured approach" to that investigation.

The future of senior-level negotiations between Iran and six world powers remains unclear after several rounds of lower-level discussions in July and August appear not to have made decisive progress toward an agreement that addresses international concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.

A long submerged flaw in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) surfaced conspicuously in June when Iran announced it intended to build a nuclear-powered submarine. The treaty does not ban a non-nuclear weapons state's production of weapons-grade uranium if it is to be used to power a naval reactor.

Hossein Mousavian is a research scholar at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. From 1997 to 2005, he was the head of the Foreign Relations Committee of Iran’s National Security Council; from 2003 to 2005, he served as spokesman for Iran in its nuclear negotiations with the European Union. He is author of The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir (2012).

Additional U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s banking and oil sectors went into effect June 28, further restricting Iran’s ability to export oil and isolating the country from the international financial system.