Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Iran and world powers reached a historic deal on Tuesday, enabling the lifting of economic sanctions off of the Islamic Republic in exchange for tight restrictions and inspections on its nuclear program.
According to the deal, if Iran violates the agreement then international sanctions will be restored within 65 days, senior American officials said. In addition, the IAEA would have to confirm prior to the lifting of each sanction that Iran had fulfilled its obligations.
The 65-day sanction restoration process will work as follows: If a state suspects that Iran has violated the agreement, it will be able to file its complaint with an arbitration board comprising members of the six world powers, the European Union and Iran itself. The committee will have 30 days to decide whether to bring the complaint to the UN Security Council. In that case, the Security Council will have 30 days to vote on whether to restore sanctions, and has the option of extending the deliberations by five days. The Security Council decision will have to be approved by a regular majority, and no countries will have veto right on the matter.
Before the economic sanctions are reached, the IAEA will have to confirm that Iran has fulfilled the following technical steps and reported them to the UN Security Council:
The deal permits Iran to keep 5,060 first-generation centrifuges at the enrichment facility in Natanz and may enrich uranium to a low level of 3.67 percent over the course of 15 years. It will be permitted to keep 300 kilograms of uranium enriched to that level.
As for its existing stockpile of low-level enriched uranium, which currently stands at 12 ton, Iran will have to either dilute it or transfer to another country in exchange for crude uranium.
The underground enrichment facility in Fordo will be turned into a research center focusing on nuclear physics. Iran will be prohibited over the course of 15 years from bring fissile material of any kind into that facility. Of the 2,800 centrifuges currently installed at Fordo, only 1,044 will remain. The rest will be transferred to a central storage facility, under the inspection of the IAEA. Iran will not be permitted to use any of the remaining centrifuges for enriching uranium – 348 of the centrifuges will be used for creating isotopes for medical purposes and the rest will be used to replace damages centrifuges.
The agreement also stipulates that the heavy water reactor in Arak is to be re-engineered in a way that would bar it from producing enough plutonium for a nuclear bomb. The reactor's core will be dismantled and the new core will be based on a model agreed upon by Iran and the world powers. The reactor will have the capacity to produce one kilogram of plutonium a year – a very small amount that would not suffice for the production of a nuclear bomb. The reactor will be placed under IAEA monitoring to detect any misuse of plutonium.
Furthermore, the amount of heavy water can have within its territory will not exceed the quantity required to allow the Arak reactor to function at a low capacity. This will make it difficult for Iran to break out toward a nuclear bomb based on plutonium. IAEA inspectors will monitor the amount of heavy water kept by Iran.
On the day that the IAEA ascertains that Iran has held up its commitments as stipulated in the deal, the UN Security Council will vote on a resolution that will void all the previous UNSC resolutions with regard to sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic. The new resolution will extend the ban on selling Iran sensitive nuclear equipment by 10 years, and the sanctions on missile technology by eight years. The embargo on the sale and provision of conventional weapons to Iran would remain in place for only five years.
As part of the deal, Iran has agreed to sign an additional protocol of the Nonproliferation Treaty that will allow for tighter monitoring by UN inspectors. The Iranians have agreed on additional monitoring measures, including surveillance and inspection for 25 years of uranium mines and raw uranium production lines as well. Moreover, production lines for centrifuges and centrifuge parts will be subjected to continual inspection.
According to the agreement, UN inspectors will be able to enter any suspect facility in Iran within a maximum period of 24 days. Iran will be able to present reservations to the IAEA's requests to visit suspicious facilities. In such cases, a special arbitration committee will be established to make a decision. The committee will include representatives of the six world powers, Iran and the European Union. Iran will be in the minority, with only Russia and China holding positions close to Tehran's.
The arbitration committee will convene within two weeks after Iran presents its reservations, and will have to discuss the issue and make a decision within seven days. If the committee decides in a vote to reject the Iranian reservations, Iran will have three days to arrange the inspectors' visit to the suspicious facility. The inspectors who would be allowed access to the nuclear facilities and the suspicious sites in Iran will come only from states with which Iran has diplomatic relations. U.S. inspectors will not be allowed to enter the facilities.
After the IAEA rules that Iran has fulfilled its obligations, the European Union's economic sanctions will be suspended, beginning with
the oil embargo and the sanctions on Iran's banking system, including a thaw on the 100 billion dollars in funds that were frozen in its
foreign accounts or which had been blocked from being transferred to Iranian banks. Nevertheless, a few Iranian banks known to be funding terror groups will remain under sanctions.
Along with the deal with the great powers, Iran has reached an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency in regard to revealing possible military aspects of its nuclear program. The Iranians promised to submit answers in writing to all the questions regarding nuclear weapons testing to the IAEA by August 15, and to implement the rest of the provisions, such as granting permission to United Nations inspectors to visit the suspicious facility at the military base in Parchin by October 15. The IAEA will have to report by December 15 whether Iran has fulfilled its obligations. The IAEA's opinion will be the condition for removing some of the sanctions against Iran.
Iran also promised not to carry out any future activity that is likely to be related to the development of nuclear weapons – such as the development of a missile warhead, computerized planning of a nuclear explosion, tests on exploding neutrons or nuclear fuses and detonators. The Iranians will have to turn to the arbitration committee to receive permission to carry out this type of activity for civilian purposes. No time limit was determined for this promise by Iran.
A senior U.S. official said that according to the provisions of the agreement Iran's "breakout time" – the time necessary to achieve sufficient fissionable material to one nuclear bomb – will be about a year and perhaps even more, for a period of 10 years. The official said that after 10 years Iran's breakout time will be only slightly shorter. "It won't be falling off a cliff," he said.
The reason, he said, is that for 15 years Iran will be able to possess only 300 kilograms of uranium enriched to a low level of 3.67 percent, from which it is impossible to produce enough high-level uranium for one nuclear bomb.
An issue that remains vague deals with the research and development activity that Iran will want to implement on advanced centrifuges that could shorten its breakout time, because they will be able to enrich uranium at a much higher speed. During the first 10 years of the agreement Iran will not be able to operate more than 100 of its 300 advanced centrifuges, and even those in operation cannot be used for enriching uranium.
A senior U.S. official said that Iran will submit an R&D program for the centrifuges for IAEA perusal. The main points of the program will also be sent to the arbitration committee. The Iranians for their part claimed that the agreement in no way limits their R&D activity on advanced centrifuges and allows them to continue it uninterrupted.
*Haaretz
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