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Iran's Missile Tests Reveal Weaknesses of UN Security Council Resolution

(Foundation for Defense of Democracies) Olli Heinonen - Nuclear weapons development usually goes hand-in-hand with the development of means of warhead delivery. This was one of the reasons that the 2010 UN Security Council resolution on Iran's nuclear program banned work on ballistic missiles. More recently, Resolution 2231 - passed in July 2015 to codify the nuclear deal - calls on Iran not to undertake ballistic missile-related activities until the IAEA concludes that Tehran's nuclear program is peaceful. Iran argues that its missile tests are permitted because Resolution 2231 only "call[s] upon" it "not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons." Iran's testing of more advanced centrifuges, stockpiling of uranium, and enhancing nuclear manufacturing infrastructure continue apace. Developments in Tehran's missile program, therefore, cannot be dealt with in isolation from its nuclear efforts. If testing of ballistic and cruise missiles is not covered by Resolution 2231, the Security Council should issue a new resolution explicitly banning them. Failure to address this problem means that Iran will have delivery vehicles on hand when it is able, in a decade, to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb within a few weeks. The writer is former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and head of its Department of Safeguards.
2017-02-09 00:00:00
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