Secret loopholes revealed in Iran nucleardeal

THE WORLD powers that negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran last year allowed Tehran a number of secret exemptions from the disarmament requirements contained in the agreement.

According to a report published last week by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, these exemptions were created so that Iran could comply with the terms of the deal by the required deadline and begin to receive sanctions relief.

The report’s authors say that it was based on interviews with unnamed officials from some of the governments that signed the deal. The revelations contradicted express denials by the Obama administration that there had been any secret parts to the Iran deal.

The exemptions were created by a special commission set up to implement the deal. It included representatives from the United States, Britain, Russia, France, Germany, China and the United Nations.

According to the officials inter- viewed by the author of the report, the commission allowed Iran to keep more low-enriched uranium (which can be made into higher-grade material) and radiation containment units (which can also be used for handling weapons-grade plutonium) than specified by the agreement, so that it could meet the January 16 deadline, the date when the sanctions on Iran were lifted.

In another reported exemption, Iran was allowed to ship 50 tons of “heavy water” from its nuclear reactor at Arak to neighbouring Oman, where it is being kept under Iranian supervision.

The Obama administration said that the existence of the commission and its role was not a secret, but failed to address the actual exemptions.

The Israeli government has not commented on the report but senior Israeli officials have warned that while the Iran deal prevents the country from building a nuclear weapon at present, it preserves the components it would need to build one in a decade, once the deal expires.