Landmark Deal Sets a Six-Month Freeze, but Enrichment Issues Remain
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
The foreign policy chief of the European Union and Iranian officials
announced a landmark accord that would temporarily freeze Tehran’s
nuclear program and lay the foundation for a more sweeping deal.
News Analysis
A Step Toward Slowing Iran’s Weapons Capability
By DAVID E. SANGER
The interim deal brings the Obama administration a step closer to its
ultimate goal: lengthening the time it takes Iran to build a weapon.
Denis Balibouse/Reuters
Secretary of State John Kerry with Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, upon conclusion of the deal.
Israeli Leaders Decry Iran Accord
By ISABEL KERSHNER
Israeli leaders say that they are not bound by the agreement signed in
Geneva and that their country is ready to defend itself without any
allies.
Accord Reached With Iran to Halt Nuclear Program
Denis Balibouse/Reuters
Secretary of State John Kerry with Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, upon conclusion of the deal.
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: November 23, 2013
GENEVA — The United States and five other world powers announced a landmark accord Sunday morning that would temporarily freeze Iran’s nuclear program and lay the foundation for a more sweeping agreement.
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News Analysis: A Step, if Modest, Toward Slowing Iran’s Weapons Capability(November 24, 2013)
The negotiators in Geneva on Sunday. President
Obama’s administration now must appear accommodating enough to Iran to
keep talks moving, and tough enough not to seem naïve to allies.
It was the first time in nearly a decade, American officials said, that
an international agreement had been reached to halt much of Iran’s
nuclear program and roll some elements of it back.
The aim of the accord, which is to last six months, is to give
international negotiators time to pursue a more comprehensive pact that
would ratchet back much of Iran’s nuclear program and ensure that it
could be used only for peaceful purposes.
Shortly after the agreement was signed at 3 a.m. in the Palace of
Nations in Geneva, President Obama, speaking from the State Dining Room
in the White House, hailed it as the most “significant and tangible”
progress of a diplomatic campaign that began when he took office.
“Today, that diplomacy opened up a new path toward a world that is more
secure,” he said, “a future in which we can verify that Iran’s nuclear
program is peaceful and that it cannot build a nuclear weapon.”
In Geneva, the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said he
hoped the agreement would lead to a “restoration” of trust between Iran
and the United States. Smiling and avuncular, he reiterated Iran’s
longstanding assertion that its nuclear program was peaceful, adding
that the Iranian people deserved respect from the West.
Secretary of State John Kerry,
who flew to Geneva early Saturday for the second time in two weeks in
an effort to complete the deal, said it would “require Iran to prove the
peaceful nature of its nuclear program.”
Iran, which has long resisted international monitoring efforts and built
clandestine nuclear facilities, agreed to stop enriching uranium beyond
5 percent, a level that would be sufficient for energy production but
that would require further enrichment for bomb-making. To make good on
that pledge, Iran will dismantle links between networks of centrifuges.
Its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent, a short hop from
weapons-grade fuel, would be diluted or converted into oxide so that it
could not be readily used for military purposes. Iran agreed that it
would not install any new centrifuges, start up any that are not already
operating or build new enrichment facilities.
The agreement, however, does not require Iran to stop enriching uranium
to a low level of 3.5 percent, or to dismantle any of its existing
centrifuges.
The accord was a disappointment for Israel, which had urged the United
States to pursue a stronger agreement that would lead to a complete end
to Iran’s enrichment program. But Iran made it clear that continuing
enrichment was a prerequisite for any agreement.
The United States did not accept Iran’s claim that it had a “right to
enrich” under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. But American
officials signaled last week that they were open to a compromise in
which the two sides would essentially agree to disagree on how the
proliferation treaty should be interpreted, while Tehran continued to
enrich.
In return for the initial agreement, the United States agreed to provide
$6 billion to $7 billion in sanctions relief. Of this, roughly $4.2
billion would be oil revenue that has been frozen in foreign banks.
This limited sanctions relief can be accomplished by executive order,
allowing the Obama administration to make the deal without having to
appeal to Congress, where there is strong criticism of any agreement
that does not fully dismantle Iran’s nuclear program.
The fact that the accord would only pause the Iranian program was seized
on by critics who said it would reward Iran for institutionalizing the
status quo.
Mr. Obama addressed those concerns in his speech, insisting that the
easing of sanctions could be reversed if Iran failed to reach a final
agreement or reneged on the terms of this one.
“Nothing will be agreed to unless everything is agreed to,” he said.
He also noted the qualms of Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf
allies of the United States, saying they “had good reason to be
skeptical of Iran’s intentions.” But he said he had a “profound
responsibility” to test the possibilities of a diplomatic solution.
In Geneva, Mr. Kerry said of the agreement: “It will make our partners
in the region safer. It will make our ally Israel safer.”
The deal would also add at least several weeks, and perhaps more than a
month, to the time Iran would need to produce weapons-grade uranium for a
nuclear device, according to estimates by nuclear experts. American
officials argued that it would preclude Iran from shortening the time it
would need to produce enough bomb-grade uranium for a nuclear device
even further, and would provide additional warning if Iran sought to
“break out” of its commitment to pursue only a peaceful nuclear program.
Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A 2006 photo of the heavy water plant in Arak, south
of Tehran. The reactor being built at Arak is an issue in talks.
Multimedia
Related
-
News Analysis: A Step, if Modest, Toward Slowing Iran’s Weapons Capability (November 24, 2013)
A second and even more contentious debate centered on whether an initial
deal would, as the Obama administration said, serve as a “first step”
toward a comprehensive solution of the nuclear issue, one that would
leave Iran with a peaceful nuclear program that could not easily be used
for military purposes.
Two former American national security advisers, Zbigniew Brzezinski and
Brent Scowcroft, recently sent a letter to key American lawmakers
endorsing the administration’s approach. “The apparent commitment of the
new government of Iran to reverse course on its nuclear activities
needs to be tested to insure it cannot rapidly build a nuclear weapon,”
they wrote.
But some experts, including a former official who has worked on the
Iranian issue for the White House, said it was unlikely that Iran’s
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would ever close the door on the
option to develop nuclear weapons.
Instead, they said, any initial six-month agreement is more likely to
be followed by a series of partial agreements that constrain Iran’s
nuclear activities but do not definitively solve the nuclear issues.
“At the end of six months, we may see another half step and six more
months of negotiations — ad infinitum,” said Gary Samore, a senior aide
on nonproliferation issues on the National Security Council in Mr.
Obama’s first term. Mr. Samore is now president of United Against
Nuclear Iran, a nonprofit group that advocates tough sanctions against
Iran unless it does more to curtail its nuclear program.
The agreement also reflected compromises on other issues.
On the contentious issue of the heavy water reactor Iran is building
near Arak, which could produce plutonium and therefore another path to a
bomb, Iran agreed not to produce fuel for the plant, install additional
reactor components there or put the plant into operation.
Iran is not required to dismantle the facility, however, or convert the
plant into a light water reactor that would be less useful for military
purposes.
Regarding enrichment, Iran’s stockpile of such low-enriched uranium
would be allowed to temporarily increase to about eight tons from about
seven tons currently. But Tehran would be required to shrink this
stockpile by the end of the six-month agreement back to seven tons. This
would be done by installing equipment to covert some of that stockpile
to oxide.
To guard against cheating, international monitors would be allowed to
visit the Natanz enrichment facility and the underground nuclear
enrichment plant at Fordo on a daily basis to check the film from
cameras installed there.
But Iran did not agree to all of the intrusive inspection regime that
the International Atomic Energy Agency had said was needed to ensure
that the Iranian program is peaceful.
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