Iran Deal: Practical, Far-Sighted and Fair

by Peter Jenkins

These understandings are a credit to all who were involved in their negotiation. They are practical, far-sighted, and fair – although personally I believe greater sanctions relief would have been justified by the temporary derogations to the Nuclear-Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) rights that Iran has volunteered.

The quality of this Joint Plan of Action is particularly apparent in the enhanced monitoring provisions which Iran has offered.

Iran has agreed to:

  • allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) daily access to the two enrichment plants that have been at the centre of Western and Israeli concern about Iran’s nuclear program. Daily access is more than enough to ensure that detection of any Iranian move towards using these facilities to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium would be so timely that the Un Security Council could interrupt and put an end to the process.
  • give the IAEA access to the workshops that produce centrifuge components and where centrifuges are assembled. This is not a legal obligation that flows from Iran’s comprehensive safeguards agreement with the IAEA. It is a voluntary, confidence-building measure. It will enable the IAEA to provide the E3+3 with assurances that Iran is implementing its commitment in the Plan of Action to limit the production of centrifuges to what is needed for the replacement of any of its currently operating machines that break down.
  • provide the IAEA with detailed information about the purpose of each building on its nuclear sites, as well as about its uranium mines and mills and unprocessed nuclear material stocks. This will help the IAEA towards providing the international community with a credible assurance that there are no undeclared nuclear activities or material on Iranian soil – an assurance that ought, in principle, to open the way to treating the Iranian nuclear program in the same manner as that of any non-nuclear-weapon state party to the NPT, as envisaged in the last paragraph of the Joint Plan of Action.
  • furnish up-to-date design information for the reactor under construction at Arak. This well help the IAEA to design, in collaboration with Iran, a plan for applying safeguards to the plant, with the aim of maximising the possibility of timely detection of any diversion of nuclear fuel from the reactor to non-peaceful purposes.

A very interesting innovation in the Plan of Action is the agreement to establish a Joint Iran/E3+3 Commission to address plan implementation issues and to work with the IAEA to facilitate resolution of past and present issues of concern. Iran has long argued that some of the demands for cooperation made of it by the IAEA Director General and his subordinates fall outside the IAEA’s legal authority and are unreasonable. This new Commission will provide Iran with a forum in which it can set out such cases, confident that at least two other members of the Commission, Russia and China, will be ready to give impartial consideration to its arguments.

This Commission is also likely to facilitate resolution of questions relating to possible research by Iran into the technology of nuclear devices. Such research is believed to have taken place during the years when Saddam Hussein either ran a nuclear weapons program or was suspected of wanting to resurrect that program after its dismantlement by the UN and IAEA.

Together these provisions in the action plan amount to a very promising package. They make possible state-of-the-art verification of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program. Such high-quality verification was never available in the only state that has developed nuclear weapons while adhering to the NPT, North Korea — nor in Iraq prior to 1991 and between 1998 and 2003.

Peter Jenkins

Peter Jenkins was a British career diplomat for 33 years, following studies at the Universities of Cambridge and Harvard. He served in Vienna (twice), Washington, Paris, Brasilia and Geneva. He specialized in global economic and security issues. His last assignment (2001-06) was that of UK Ambassador to the IAEA and UN (Vienna). Since 2006 he has represented the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership, advised the Director of IIASA and set up a partnership, The Ambassador Partnership llp, with former diplomatic colleagues, to offer the corporate sector dispute resolution and solutions to cross-border problems. He was an associate fellow of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy from 2010 to 2012. He writes and speaks on nuclear and trade policy issues.

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2 Comments

  1. I agree completely with your description of the interim deal as “practical and far-sighted”, but I qualify the adjective “fair” with your subsequent sentence that you would have preferred greater sanctions relief, which is absolutely right. Even without taking any further steps, the interim agreement makes it impossible for Iran to build a nuclear weapon as it strictly limits her enrichment capabilities and opens all her nuclear sites to intrusive inspection. So, the West and Israel have practically got all that they wanted, namely to make sure that Iran’s program was entirely peaceful.

    In return, Iran only receives a meager relief of a few billion dollars out of 100-billion dollars of her frozen assets, and some promises about easing of sanctions on automotive industry and some trade in gold, without specifying how this could be done without bypassing sanctions on banking transactions.

    However, what is important is that it is the first step that breaks the ice between Iran and the West and hopefully will result in a fairer and more comprehensive agreement at the end of the six months’ period. Given the level of agreement between Iran and P5+1 it will be very difficult for hawks in Israel and the United States to push for war, although there is still need for a great deal of vigilance.

  2. Time will tell how this works out. Until the next country in the M.E. decodes to build its own Nuclear reactor[s]. As long as Israel & Saudi Arabia/some Gulf states maintain their rights to such Nuclear plants, there will be the ongoing tension that exists today. Until the “Bull in the China shop” is dealt with, there can be no confidence of a peaceful M.E. But then, maybe if every country had such facilities, the problem might be neutralized?

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