The
Wall Street Journal
The initiative to reduce Iran’s enriched-uranium
stockpile has taken on new urgency since Donald Trump’s election created new
uncertainty around the accord
Inside the Arak heavy-water production facility
in central Iran. Last week, the head of the U.N. atomic agency overseeing
the nuclear deal called out Iran for exceeding the heavy-water
cap for a second time this year. PHOTO: REUTERS
By LAURENCE NORMAN
BRUSSELS—The U.S. and its Western allies are pressing
Iran to take steps to sharply cut the amount of radioactive material it holds
in a bid to shore up last year’s nuclear deal and discourage the incoming Trump
administration from abandoning it, Western officials said.
The
discussions about reducing Iran’s stockpile of enriched
uranium started months ago, officials said, and are among a number of
measures the Obama administration has been
examining to fortify
the accord in its final months in office. But the initiative has taken on new
urgency since the election of President-elect Donald Trumpcreated fresh uncertainty
around the deal.
If agreed
upon, the plan could reduce the odds of a sudden flashpoint between the U.S.
and Iran over Tehran’s implementation of the deal once Mr. Trump takes office,
Western officials say, by reducing its enriched-uranium stockpile well below
the cap agreed to in the 2015 accord.
Officials
say the plan would also lengthen, for a while, Iran’s so-called breakout
time—the amount of time it would take the country to accumulate enough material
for one nuclear weapon were it to quit or violate the deal—though it is unclear
by how much. The constraints of the nuclear agreement are currently set up to
ensure it would take Iran at least a year to produce the ingredients for a
nuclear weapon.
Neither the Trump transition team nor Iranian officials
immediately responded to requests for comment on the initiative.
While on
the campaign trail, Mr. Trump vowed to scrap and, alternately, renegotiate the
deal, and his picks to his national security
team so
far suggest his administration will take a hard line with Tehran. On
Wednesday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened a response if the U.S. extended Iranian
sanctions—as House lawmakers this week voted to do—for another decade.
Western
officials, though, say Iranian officials have engaged in serious discussions
about the new plan but haven’t so far committed to it. In the past, Iran has
proven sensitive about moves that would curtail its rights to enrich uranium
under the accord. Having that right was a demand Iran—which has always denied
any intent to develop nuclear weapons—made a priority in the nuclear-deal
negotiations. Nonetheless, Iran has sent abroad or blended into natural uranium
thousands of kilograms of enriched uranium since the July 2015 accord.
That agreement sought,
among other things, to ensure that Iran couldn’t speedily accrue
enough of key ingredients, such as enriched uranium and plutonium, to build a
nuclear weapon.
Under the deal with the U.S. and five other governments,
including Russia, Iran agreed to cap its stockpile of enriched uranium at
300 kilograms (661 pounds) for the next 15 years. The agreement also set a cap
of 130 metric tons (143.3 U.S. tons) on Iran’s stockpile of heavy water, a
material that can be used to cool uranium in a process to produce plutonium.
Last
week, the head of the United Nations atomic agency overseeing
the Iranian nuclear agreement called out Iran for exceeding
the heavy-water cap for a second time this year. International Atomic Energy
Agency Director General Yukiya Amano warned that
Iran could undermine confidence in the implementation of the deal if
Tehran crossed key limits again.
Iran reacted swiftly and sent 11 tons of heavy water to Oman early this
week, likely putting Iran below the 130-metric-ton limit for months to come,
people familiar with the situation said.
The plan
that the U.S. and its partners are currently discussing with Iran would
take Tehran’s stockpile far from the 300-kilogram limit on enriched
uranium, Western officials said, ensuring that it wouldn’t exceed the cap for
some time.
When the
nuclear deal was closed, Iran had an estimated 100 kilograms of enriched
uranium stuck in the pipes and machinery at its currently mothballed
enriched uranium facility in Isfahan in central Iran.
People
familiar with the discussions, which have taken place among Iranian, U.S. and
European nuclear experts, say that if an agreement is reached, Iran could, in a
matter of a few weeks to a couple of months, clean out the facility and the
pipes and machinery in a way which degrades the uranium so that it isn’t usable
for potential future use in a weapon.
Officials
say there are various ways that could be done without dismantling the facility
including, for example, flushing the pipes with chemicals to create a liquid
waste that would be very hard to turn back into powder form for enriching into
weapons-grade uranium.
“The idea
is to render material that is already incredibly difficult to recover
unrecoverable,” said one Western official.
Some
nuclear experts have complained that neither the IAEA, Iran, the U.S. nor the
EU, which helps oversee the deal’s implementation, have clearly defined what
they count as “unrecoverable” material—uranium that is genuinely impossible to
separate out and redeploy.
They
argue that some uranium may have been exempted from the cap over the past year,
which, while time-consuming and difficult, isn’t impossible to reconstitute
into more dangerous forms of enriched uranium.
Officials
say that in the new political context, given the uncertainties over the nuclear
deal, action by Iran to ensure it significantly reduces its current enriched
uranium stockpile, would be a clear win-win.
“It is in
everyone’s interest that Iran continues to remain under the limits
set in the JCPOA,” said a senior U.S. administration official, using the
acronym for the agreement.
People
familiar with Iran’s actions say Iran has also run depleted
uranium at other facilities to slow its production of enriched uranium. Others
say Iran may have deliberately slowed production of heavy water by
keeping its two production units at the nuclear site of Arak shut down for
longer than technically necessary, although there is no hard evidence for that.
The
enriched-uranium initiative is one of several by the U.S. administration to
bolster the agreement before President Barack Obama leaves
office. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the administration was
also considering steps to provide licenses for more American businesses to
enter the Iranian market and the lifting of additional U.S. sanctions.
