Is
this reality or am I reading MAD magazine?
"One variation being discussed would place at least 10-year regime of strict controls on Iran’s uranium enrichment program. If Iran complies, the restrictions would be gradually lifted over the last five years of such an agreement"
GENEVA — The United
States and Iran are working on a two-phase deal that clamps down on Tehran’s
nuclear program for at least a decade before providing it leeway over the remainder
of the agreement to slowly ramp up activities that could be used to make
weapons.
Officials from some
of the six-power talks with Iran said details still needed to be agreed on,
with U.S. and Iranian negotiators meeting Monday for the third straight day
ahead of an end-of-March deadline for a framework agreement. U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry joined the negotiations after arriving Sunday.
A breakthrough was
not expected before Kerry returns to Washington later Monday. Still, Western
officials familiar with the talks cited long-awaited progress on some elements
that would have to go into a comprehensive deal. They described the discussions
as a moving target, however, meaning changes in any one area would have
repercussions for other parts of the negotiation.
The idea would be to
reward Iran for good behavior over the last years of any agreement, gradually
lifting constraints on its uranium enrichment program and slowly easing
economic sanctions.
Iran says it does not
want nuclear arms and needs enrichment only for energy, medical and scientific
purposes, but the U.S. fears Tehran could re-engineer the program to another
potential use — producing the fissile core of a nuclear weapon.
The U.S. initially
sought restrictions lasting for up to 20 years; Iran had pushed for less than a
decade. The prospective deal appears to be somewhere in the middle.
One
variation being discussed would place at least 10-year regime of strict
controls on Iran’s uranium enrichment program. If Iran complies, the restrictions
would be gradually lifted over the last five years of such an agreement.
Iran could be allowed
to operate significantly more centrifuges than the U.S. administration first
demanded, though at lower capacity than they currently run. Several officials spoke
of 6,500 centrifuges as a potential point of compromise, with the U.S. trying
to restrict them to Iran’s mainstay IR-1 model instead of more advanced
machines.
It would also be
forced to ship out most of the enriched uranium it produces or change it to a
form that is difficult to reconvert for weapons use. It takes about 1 ton of
low-enriched uranium to process into a nuclear weapon, and officials said that
Tehran could be restricted to an enriched stockpile of no more than 300
kilograms (about 700 pounds).
The officials
represent different countries among the six world powers negotiating with Iran
— the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia. They spoke on
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about
the negotiations.
The U.N. nuclear
agency would have responsibility for monitoring, and any deal would depend more
on technical safeguards than Iranian goodwill to ensure compliance.
But the accord will
have to receive some sort of acceptance from the U.S. Congress to be fully
implemented. That is a tough sell given the hostility to any Iranian enrichment
from most Republican and many Democratic lawmakers.
For the United
States, the goal is to extend to at least a year the period that Iran would
need to surreptitiously “break out” toward nuclear weapons development.
In exchange, Iran
wants relief from the various layers of trade, financial and petroleum
sanctions crippling its economy and the Americans are talking about phasing in
such measures.
Several steps would
come immediately through executive action by President Barack Obama, the
officials said. Other penalties would be suspended, but not lifted, as Iran
demonstrates its compliance with its obligations. A lesser amount of
restrictions would stay in place until Congress acts to remove them
permanently.
Progress also is
being made on the status of Iran’s underground enrichment facility at Fordo and
heavy water reactor at Arak, which potentially could produce enough plutonium
for several nuclear weapons a year. Fordo could be turned into a research lab
and Arak, which is close to completion, could be reconfigured to produce much
less plutonium, officials said.
More rounds of
negotiations are needed for a framework, officials said, with Kerry likely to
return to Geneva as soon as next week.
