IAEA estimates Iran monitoring at $6 million

January 18, 2014 - 11:31 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The UN nuclear agency estimates that monitoring Iran's compliance with terms of the nuclear deal Tehran reached with six world powers will cost $6 million (4.4 million euros.)

The figure is contained in a confidential report the Associated Press said it obtained Friday, Jan 17. It was prepared for a meeting Monday of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation governing board, which is expected to approve the IAEA's monitoring role.

The report says the IAEA can save minimal costs by reassigning some staff but most of the funding will have to come from contributions, according to the AP.

The six-month deal is scheduled to be implemented starting Monday and is meant as the first step toward a permanent accord.

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Iran's nuclear program

Iran's leaders have worked to pursue nuclear energy technology since the 1950s, spurred by the launch of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace program. It made steady progress, with Western help, through the early 1970s. But concern over Iranian intentions followed by the upheaval of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 effectively ended outside assistance. Iran was known to be reviving its civilian nuclear programs during the 1990s, but revelations in 2002 and 2003 of clandestine research into fuel enrichment and conversion raised international concern that Iran's ambitions had metastasized beyond peaceful intent. Although Iran has consistently denied allegations it seeks to develop a bomb, the September 2009 revelation of a second uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom -constructed under the radar of international inspectors - deepened suspicion surrounding Iran's nuclear ambitions.