Iran Nuclear Deal: A Topsy Turvy Step Into A Peaceful Future?
By Mehak Kulaar
“Nuclear weapons were, and are, the gravest threat to humanity’s survival”
George Shultz, Former Secretary of State, USA
The Strategic Deal and Agreement
In July 2015, Iran and six global powers also known as P5+1 ( US, France, the UK, China, Russia and Germany)arrived at a historic arrangement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), famously known as the Iran nuclear deal. The primary aim of the deal was to promote peace in the Middle East and counter the developing prevalence of ISIS.
The deal came together after two years of intense discussions and was aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity and in return lift monetary approvals against Tehran.
Iran’s part of the agreement- Iran consented to diminish its number of centrifuges – tube-formed machines that help enrich uranium – by 66%. It also consented to decrease its store of enriched uranium by 98% and limit uranium enrichment to 3.67%.
Tehran consented to permit storage of enriched uranium only for the country’s energy needs.
On top of this, Iran consented to offer access to investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, to its nuclear facilities.
In January 2016, when the IAEA proclaimed Iran was keeping up the end of the deal, all nuclear-related regulations against Iran were lifted.
Opposition to the Iran Nuclear Deal
The deal, even though it was welcomed by a larger group of countries, likewise had resistance from a couple of prominent world leaders. Israeli leader Netanyahu said the deal “paves Iran’s path to the bomb.” His resistance to the deal was based on Iran’s history of being a nuclear-able challenge for the Middle East region.
Moreover, Netanyahu said the deal was a stage to finance and support a nuclear-proficient, religious-extremist nation, saying a reinforced Iran could hinder peace and security around the region.
Trump Era and Iran
After Donald Trump was elected as the President in November 2016, participants of the deal were sceptical of the agreement (that was aimed at world peace).
Later in May 2018, President Trump reported that the U.S. would pull out of the deal and restore sanctions on Iran before the end of the year. European nations, including Germany, France, and the U.K. disagreed with this decision.
This impacted Iran’s economy prompting protests across the country. To which Iran reacted, with a declaration that the nation was moving back on regulations that had been previously consented to under the 2015 deal, i.e, Iran stopped complying with the caps on reserves of enriched uranium. The Iranian president likewise declared the nation would stop any trade of excess supplies abroad.
As the tension escalated in 2020, President Trump ordered the killing of General Qasem Soleimani, one of Iran’s top military leaders. In response, Iran reported it would presently not agree with the nuclear deal endorsed by President Obama in 2015.
In May 2019, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization stated that they would quadruple the creation or outsourcing of low-enriched uranium, which was subsequently affirmed by the IAEA as reported by BBC news.
Biden Era and Iran
President Joe Biden has been strategically pushing for reestablishing the 2015 nuclear concurrence with Iran. As per authorities working on the deal, Biden and his aides are going through the process of reviewing each sanction that Donald Trump has imposed against Iran. (Towards the end of Trump’s term, the previous President levied around 700 sanctions against the country.)
Ali Vaez, of theInternational Crisis Group (ICG), has said that “…sanctions that are justified and not inconsistent with the JCPOA, like those that targeted human rights violations in Iran or those that penalized Iranians involved in cyberattacks against the U.S., will stay in place.”
As of late, Iran has created nuclear material that could be utilized for bombs and has expanded its enrichment levels. Both of these activities are an infringement of the first agreement and whenever proceeded, would prevent any sanctions against the country from being lifted.
The conundrum of the Present and the fate of the Deal
The future of talks to bring the US back into the Iran nuclear deal is under threat after the UN nuclear watchdog couldn’t agree on the most proficient method for assessment of Iran’s nuclear destinations.
IAEA had to cut back on a scheduled press conference due to the conflicting signs from Iran and its decision over the deal.
The IAEA’s Director-General, Rafael Grossi, will continue the talks with Tehran on a technical understanding. However, the discussion on resuscitating the nuclear deal with the west will be suspended if the IAEA and Iran don’t reach an agreement on inspections first.
The IAEA had been hoping that the three-month deal would be stretched out for another month giving all signatories enough time to finish negotiations and revive the 2015 deal.
Iranian authorities had informed that a one-month expansion of its technical agreement with the IAEA was probably going to be agreed upon, yet hardliners in the Iranian parliament demanded there would be no extension of a three-month deal.
Without an extension, Iran said it is entitled to wipe video recordings made throughout the recent three months of Iran’s nuclear exercises. The IAEA doesn’t have access to these recordings, however, it had been guaranteed it would have it once a more extensive settlement was reached with the US.
The US has said it will lift sanctions connected to the nuclear deal, yet other sanctions connected to terrorism or human rights abuse will stay unless Iran’s conduct changes.
Commenting on the state of the Vienna talks Anthony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said “Washington has not yet seen whether Iran will do what it needs to do to come into compliance with its nuclear responsibilities to have sanctions lifted”.
Iran has been steadily decreasing its consistency with the nuclear deal, saying its means were supported as a reaction to the US pulling out of the 2015 deal altogether in 2018.
A one-month extension would give the US, Iran and the five other signatories to the deal room to attempt to finish a discussion on how the US will lift sanctions against Iran and get back to the deal, thus reestablishing Iran’s full consistency with the arrangement.
On the off chance that there is no expansion, Iran said it could erase the video recordings of its sites compiled throughout the last three months, leaving the IAEA without data on Iran’s nuclear sites.