U.S. allies see narrow window for Biden to revive nuclear deal
BERLIN — Washington’s European allies hope the incoming Biden administration will take swift steps to restore the Iran nuclear deal amid mounting pressures, including Tehran’s boost in uranium enrichment and elections later this year that could usher in a more hardline government.
President-elect Joe Biden had expressed continued support for the pact forged while he was vice president in the Obama administration, which granted some sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. Mr. Biden’s nominee for deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, helped hammer out the Iran deal in 2015.
But it’s unclear how receptive Iran’s leadership remains to renegotiate with world powers after President Donald Trump pulled out. And Europe sees a tight window of opportunity following the president-elect’s inauguration Wednesday.
Iran’s presidential election in June could bring in a new government that’s more in line with hard-liners within the inner circle of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word in all key decisions.
“We are running out of time,” said Omid Nouripour, a member of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee. “Every single day we don’t talk and there are no inspections, the centrifuges are running faster and faster.”
An International Atomic Energy Agency report issued earlier this month said Iran has informed the Viennabased organization that it had begun working on equipment needed to produce uranium metal, which can be used to produce nuclear warheads.
It represents a further Iranian breach of the deal, under which Tehran has said it would reduce its commitments since the Trump administration withdrew in 2018 and imposed wide-ranging sanctions. Earlier this month, Iran said it had resumed 20% uranium enrichment at its Fordow nuclear facility, putting it closer to being able to enrich the 90% needed for a nuclear weapon.
Iran’s leadership insists the enriched uranium is only for energy-producing and research reactors.
But the moves ramp up pressure for European nations that want to salvage the 2015 agreement with the help of the incoming Biden administration.
The IAEA report, details of which were first published by the Wall Street Journal, said Iran had already manufactured some of the equipment needed for the production of uranium metal and showed it to the agency’s inspectors during a Jan. 10 visit to the nuclear site in Isfahan.
Iran said the installation of the equipment needed for the first stage of production was expected to be completed in four to five months, according to the report, indicating the later two stages of the production process were “still in the design phase” and no timeline was available.
“There is certainly an awareness that a few things [are] happening in parallel,” said Naysan Rafati, an Iran analyst at International Crisis Group.
There is the potential for a further escalation in Iran’s breaches of the deal in February under a new law passed in Tehran following the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November, he said.
In the wake of Fakhrizadeh’s killing, Iran’s conservative parliament expedited legislation requiring the government to ramp up certain nuclear activities unless key sanctions are lifted. The bill’s swift passage was driven by political hard-liners eager to pressure the more moderate President Hassan Rouhani, whose government negotiated the deal ahead of the presidential elections in June.
The law calls for everything from stepping up uranium enrichment — as happened this month — to installing advanced centrifuges. It includes a Feb. 21 deadline for restoring sanctions relief or Iran will limit the work of United Nations inspectors.
“There is a fear that Iran isn’t bluffing, and if access to international monitors is restricted, that would be incredibly worrying,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, an expert on European policy regarding Iran at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “The sense is that there needs to be some sort of policy position formulated by the [Biden] administration, sooner rather than later, to prevent a major escalation by Iran on the nuclear activity side.”