Glaring split for U.S., Iran on nuke deal
cians in Tehran accuse the U.S. Congress of trying to sabotage an agreement and say Iran’s actions to satisfy a deal should be reversible if world powers fail to live up to their obligations.
Based on recent comments from U.S. and Iranian leaders, as well as fact sheets on the interim deal issued separately by the United States and Iran, glaring differences appear. The main ones:
Sanctions: The fact sheet issued by Iran’s parliament Wednesday said that when the comprehensive deal begins, “all the U.S. and (European Union) sanctions will be terminated, and Iran will start fulfilling” its obligations under the deal. The White House said sanctions would be suspended in phases as Iran meets the terms of the deal and its actions are verified by United Nations inspectors.
Centrifuges: Iran’s fact sheet said Iran should keep operating about 10,000 centrifuges used to process uranium fuel. The White House said the frame-
work agreement calls for Iran to scale back to 5,060 operating centrifuges to make it more difficult to produce fuel for a nuclear bomb.
Fordow: Iran’s fact sheet said a bunkered facility under a mountain in Fordow would continue uranium enrichment and research and development activities to prepare for more ad- vanced machines in five years. The White House said Fordow would be converted to R&D that does not involve uranium enrichment.
Inspections: The White House said U.N. inspectors would have access to “all of Iran’s nuclear facilities,” including undeclared sites. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei flatly re-
jected inspections of military sites.
Duration: Iran’s parliament called for a five-year limit on the nation’s nuclear program. The White House said some aspects of the deal would last 10 years, and others would last 25 years.
Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a skeptic of an emerging deal, expressed worries that Obama will make new concessions to Iran to reach an agreement. “President Obama wants a deal and will back ‘creative negotiations,’ in his own words, to bridge remaining gaps on these issues,” he said.
Kelsey Davenport, director of non-proliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, which supports a deal with Iran, said the Iranian fact sheet was produced by a hard-line opposition in response to the planned U.S. Senate review of the agreement and does not reflect the position of Iran’s negotiators or Khamenei.
“These are tough decisions for the negotiators to make,” she said, “because each side needs to be sure they can sell a final agreement back home.”