IAEA working with spy agencies on Iran: Blix Political Desk

There are still things that can be put on the negotiation table with Iran, but for that a colonial tone should be dropped and more attention should be paid to the reward side, Blix noted.

Hans Blix

(ROME) - The International Atomic Energy Agency has been closely cooperating with the world’s spy agencies on Iran and certain other countries for years, Hans Blix, the former director general of the agency, said on February 27.

“In 1991, we realized that Iraqis had been cheating the IAEA. We went to declared installations, but not to other places and they were building things elsewhere,” he told RT.

So we said if intelligence knew about this, if the CIA knew about this thing they should tell the IAEA. The IAEA can then ask Iraq and say ‘Look we have heard this, we would like to go there and verify. You say there is nothing, then let us in.’ We then encouraged the U.S. and others to come with intelligence to the IAEA. There have done it a great deal with Iran,” he added.

Blix said that the watchdog should trust countries it sends its inspectors to and should not be considered the CIA’s “prolonged arm”.

“Of course, intelligence can always try to fool everybody,” he said, adding, “Half of the information may be true, half of it may be disinformation, and therefore they have to examine it critically.”

Blix, who was the director general of the agency from 1981 to 1997, stated that the IAEA has been very “cautious about the information they have received about Iran.”

He added that Iran does not have a pressing geopolitical need to develop nuclear weapons and that makes it possible to come to a settlement with the West.

However, this requires a wise approach, something the Western states are failing to employ at the moment, Blix commented.

“They have run the diplomatic path and only sanctions remain,” he said. “We are talking about stopping oil importing and maybe bombing, but I think they have lost their imagination.”

There are still things that can be put on the negotiation table with Iran, but for that a colonial tone should be dropped and more attention should be paid to the reward side, Blix noted.

The U.S. could, for instance, promise resumption of diplomatic ties in exchange for the settlement, he added.

TEHRAN TiME

3 March 2012