Trump has threatened to withhold his certification of Iranian compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the official name of the 2015 agreement in which Iran accepted limits on its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. When he is next required to report to Congress in mid-October, Trump has said he expected Iran to be found non-compliant by then and “if it was up to me” would have found them non-compliant months earlier.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, The UN’s nuclear watchdog, however has reported that Iran is staying within the main limits. It said that Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium is 88.4 kg (about 195 pounds) is less than a third of the maximum allowed.The current stockpile is just over 1% of the pre-agreement level. The stockpile of heavy water is also below the agreed limits, the IAEA said. It stood at 111 tonnes, below the 130-tonne limit agreed in the deal. Nor did the and that the level of enrichment exceed a 3.67 percent cap. Uranium enriched to a grade of under 5 percent of purity is considered suitable for civilian nuclear energy, while weapons-grade uranium requires enrichment of around 90 percent.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, The UN’s nuclear watchdog, however has reported that Iran is staying within the main limits. It said that Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium is 88.4 kg (about 195 pounds) is less than a third of the maximum allowed.The current stockpile is just over 1% of the pre-agreement level. The stockpile of heavy water is also below the agreed limits, the IAEA said. It stood at 111 tonnes, below the 130-tonne limit agreed in the deal. Nor did the and that the level of enrichment exceed a 3.67 percent cap. Uranium enriched to a grade of under 5 percent of purity is considered suitable for civilian nuclear energy, while weapons-grade uranium requires enrichment of around 90 percent.
The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, travelled to the IAEA headquarters last week to press the agency to be more aggressive in its inspections regime, and to focus on Iran’s military sites. However, Haley is not reported to have presented any new evidence about suspicious activity at any Iranian site, nor named any military base she believes should be investigated. Trump is putting pressure on intelligence officers and other officials to look for Iranian infractions that could justify the withdrawal of US adherence to the agreement.
Daryl Kimball, the head of the Arms Control Association, argued that the United States is pressing the IAEA to demand inspections at sensitive military sites in the hope of provoking a refusal that would justify a finding of noncompliance. “It’s up to the IAEA to determine what they need to inspect, and where and when, to acquire the information they need to monitor and verify compliance" he said.
The IAEA director, Yukiya Amano, told the Associated Press that the agency has access to all locations “without making distinctions between military and civilian locations”. There is a mechanism in the JCPOA for the IAEA to request access to sensitive sites and even to compel such access with the approval of five of the eight signatories to the agreement, who are represented on a joint commission. IAEA officials have said they will inspect Iranian military sites if there is credible information that there is suspicious activity under way there, but they are reluctant to conduct a “fishing expedition” without clear intelligence.
The agreement was also signed by the UK, France, China, Germany and Russia and they have said they will stick to the agreements. “I cannot speak for the government of the United States of America. The British government, however, is fully committed to the JCPOA and to its successful implementation,” the UK ambassador to Tehran, Nicholas Hopton, said
No comments:
Post a Comment