nuclear-news

As Iran pursues a peaceful nuclear programme, Iran’s enrichment capacity, enrichment level and stockpile will be limited for specified durations, and there will be no other enrichment facility than Natanz. Iran’s research and development on centrifuges will be carried out on a scope and schedule that has been mutually agreed.

The grand bargain: What Iran conceded in the nuclear talks, Brookings, Richard Nephew | April 18, 2015  Since the P5+1 and Iran announced the agreed parameters for a comprehensive settlement of the Iran nuclear issue earlier this month, Washington punditry has obsessed over the fine points of both the joint statement read by EU Foreign Minister Mogherini and Iranian FM Zarif, and the fact sheet released by the Obama administration, to identify concessions made by the United States.

Lost in all of the noise is any consideration of what Iran had to give up in order to get a deal and the value of what it will really get from sanctions relief (bearing in mind, of course, the fact that no deal has actually yet been signed and its premature to start the score-carding). For some, it is assumed that Iran’s temporary concessions are so meager that, in effect, the Iranians sacrificed nothing for a deal.But, this misses an important point: Iran had to make several compromises in order to get a satisfactory nuclear deal and, in the end, the separation between Iran’s public and private stances is far wider than those of the Obama administration. Moreover, the U.S. readiness to engage in sanctions relief is not a give-away to Iran but rather a result of a proportional exchange of concessions that, though some may wish not to hear it, is the only way that diplomacy actually works.Iranian compromisesTo get this far, Iran had to make several compromises on its longstanding nuclear policy. This started in the Joint Plan of Action, in which Iran agreed to permit the P5+1 (and the United States in particular) to have a role in its nuclear program decision-making. For a country as proud of its independence as Iran, the significance of this step should not be discounted. And, a similar mindset is manifest in what emerged from Lausanne earlier this month………

ven the most critical reading of either the P5+1-Iran Joint Statement or the U.S. fact sheet support the contention that, if anything, Iran made sweeping concessions to the U.S. position in this regard. The Joint Statement noted that:

As Iran pursues a peaceful nuclear programme, Iran’s enrichment capacity, enrichment level and stockpile will be limited for specified durations, and there will be no other enrichment facility than Natanz. Iran’s research and development on centrifuges will be carried out on a scope and schedule that has been mutually agreed.

Iran therefore conceded to limitations on its R&D activities, which at a minimum will be subject to a mutually agreed scope and schedule, as well as to the size of its enrichment program. The U.S. factsheet makes this concession even more stark, noting that there would be limits on Iran’s ability to use advanced centrifuges as well as on their contribution to Iran’s ability to engage in an enrichment breakout.

As for 190,000 centrifuges, the U.S. factsheet makes abundantly clear that, for 10 years, Iran would be limited to no more than 6,104 installed centrifuges, not even 4 percent of Khamenei’s demand.In fact, the final positions reached in the Joint Statement and the U.S. factsheet bear more in common with the U.S. position than the Iranian position………

The Joint Statement reached by the P5+1 and Iran, as well as the U.S. factsheet, support the contention that this more modest gap has been closed, even if the final redesign of the reactor has yet to be settled.By agreeing to the permanent modification of the Arak reactor, Iran is essentially foregoing in perpetuity a plutonium-based nuclear weapons option using this reactor. The redesigned Arak will be incapable of producing the 1-2 weapons’ worth of weapons-grade plutonium per year possible under its present configuration and, as such, its utility in a nuclear weapons’ breakout has been permanently removed.Taken in combination with Iran’s indefinite renunciation of spent fuel reprocessing capabilities and decision to ship out all spent fuel from this reactor, the plutonium path will be closed to Iran. (And lest critics suggest that Bushehr could adequately serve Iran’s plutonium needs, the risk of this was considered sufficiently low that the Bush Administration reversed its earlier policy on Bushehr, welcoming its construction in 2007. Moreover, the no reprocessing commitments made by Iran would also apply here.)……….