Under the NPT, each state negotiates a safeguards agreement to the IAEA so the atomic watchdog can work out where and how to establish monitoring devices like cameras at declared facilities. “Iran’s specific safeguards agreement doesn’t say anything about the time limits for the provision of design information,” says Ivanka Barzashka, an analyst with the Federation of American Scientists’ Strategic Security Program. Specific time-frames for site or design disclosure typically occur in additional “subsidiary arrangements,” and usually provide for disclosure around 180 days before the introduction of nuclear material into a given facility. But Iran’s subsidiary arrangement with the IAEA “has not been made public as far as I know,” Barzashka says.
