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Stories
AP: "Key restrictions on Iran's
nuclear program imposed under an internationally negotiated deal will
start to ease years before the 15-year accord expires, advancing
Tehran's ability to build a bomb even before the end of the pact,
according to a document obtained Monday by The Associated Press... The
diplomat who shared the text with the AP described it as an add-on
agreement to the nuclear deal in the form of a document submitted by
Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency outlining its plans to
expand its uranium enrichment program after the first 10 years of the
nuclear deal... Details published earlier outline most restraints on
Iran's nuclear program meant to reduce the threat that Tehran will turn
nuclear activities it says are peaceful to making weapons. But although
some of the constraints extend for 15 years, documents in the public
domain are short on details of what happens with Iran's most
proliferation-prone nuclear activity - its uranium enrichment - beyond
the first 10 years of the agreement. The document obtained by the AP
fills in the gap. It says that as of January 2027 - 11 years after the
deal was implemented - Iran will start replacing its mainstay
centrifuges with thousands of advanced machines. Centrifuges churn out
uranium to levels that can range from use as reactor fuel and for
medical and research purposes to much higher levels for the core of a
nuclear warhead. From year 11 to 13, says the document, Iran will
install centrifuges up to five times as efficient as the 5,060 machines
it is now restricted to using. Those new models will number less than
those being used now, ranging between 2,500 and 3,500, depending on
their efficiency, according to the document. But because they are more
effective, they will allow Iran to enrich at more than twice the rate
it is doing now... And that time frame could shrink even more. While
the document doesn't say what happens with centrifuge numbers and types
past year 13, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told The AP that Iran
will be free to install any number of advanced centrifuges beyond that
point, even though the nuclear deal extends two additional years...
David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and
International Security is a U.S. government go-to resource on Iran's nuclear
program, said the plan outlined in the document 'will create a great
deal of instability and possibly even lead to war, if regional tensions
have not subsided.'" http://t.uani.com/29VIUkm
AP: "Iran's foreign minister on
Tuesday extolled the country's ability to bring its nuclear program
back on track as limits on the landmark 15-year accord between Tehran
and world powers ease in the coming years. Mohammad Javad Zarif said a
document, submitted by Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency
and outlining plans to expand Iran's uranium enrichment program, is a
'matter of pride.' He said it was created by Iran's 'negotiators and
industry experts' and that even foreign media have noted Iran is likely
to strive for restoring its full enrichment after 10 years. Zarif's
remarks, carried by the semi-official Fars news agency, followed
revelations the day before of the confidential document - an add-on
agreement to the nuclear deal with world powers - that Iran gave the
IAEA. The document, obtained by The Associated Press in Vienna,
outlines Tehran's plans to expand its uranium enrichment program after
the first 10 years of the nuclear deal. It's the only text linked to
last year's deal between Iran and six world powers - the United States,
Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany - that has not been made
public, although U.S. officials say members of Congress who expressed
interest were briefed on its substance. Zarif said the addendum to the
nuclear deal will soon be made public, but he did not elaborate. 'God
willing, when the complete text of the document is published, it will
be clear where we will stand in 15 years,' he said." http://t.uani.com/29VJdLN
WSJ: "A United Nations report on
the Iran nuclear deal hailed the country for keeping its nuclear
commitments, while criticizing actions unrelated to its nuclear program
but that are seen as damaging to the momentum and spirit of the deal.
The 17-page report, timed around the first anniversary of the deal, was
released Monday by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Mr. Ban pointed
to Iran's launches of long-range ballistic missiles and reports that it
shipped weapons to Yemen and Iraq. Mr. Ban's criticism was carefully
worded. The report 'calls on' Iran to refrain from activities that
could destabilize the region, but doesn't condemn Iran for violating
Security Council Resolution 2231. The resolution was adopted by the
Council unanimously in July 2015 to endorse the nuclear deal. 'While it
is for the Security Council to interpret its own resolutions, I am
concerned that those ballistic missile launches are not consistent with
the constructive spirit demonstrated by the signing of the [nuclear
agreement],' Mr. Ban said in the report. The Security Council met on
Monday and discussed the report but, as expected, didn't take action or
issue a statement on its findings." http://t.uani.com/2a8NPwo
Nuclear
& Ballistic Missile Program
The
Hill: "Iran's
ballistic missile launches are inconsistent with the spirit of a
nuclear deal, the United Nation's secretary-general said in a report
publicly released Monday, though he refrained from calling the launches
an outright violation. 'I call upon the Islamic Republic of Iran to
refrain from conducting such launches, given that they have the
potential to increase tensions in the region,' Ban Ki-moon wrote in a
report the U.N. Security Council. 'Whereas it is for the Security
Council to interpret its own resolutions, I am concerned that those
launches are not consistent with the constructive spirit demonstrated
by the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.' The document
is Ban's first biannual report to the Security Council on the landmark
nuclear deal since 'Implementation Day' six months ago and comes just
after the one-year anniversary of the deal being reached. Though Ban
said he is encouraged by Iran's implementation of its nuclear-related
commitments, the country continues to engage in other improper
activity, such as the ballistic missile launches and shipping arms to
Yemen." http://t.uani.com/2aqpRMp
Reuters: "The United States and Russia
both criticized United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday
for overstepping his mandate in a report on the implementation of a
Security Council resolution backing a nuclear deal between Iran and
world powers... U.N. political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman briefed
the 15-member Security Council on Monday on Ban's first bi-annual
report on the implementation of the remaining sanctions and
restrictions on Iran. 'The United States disagrees strongly with
elements of this report, including that its content goes beyond the
appropriate scope. We understand that Iran also disagrees strongly with
parts of the report,' U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha
Power, told the council. Power said 'while some have argued that to be
balanced, the report should give Iran a chance to express complaints
about sanctions relief under the deal,' the Security Council did not
mandate Ban to report on such issues. Ban's report said Iran complained
that it had yet to fully benefit from the lifting of sanctions, raising
concerns about U.S. travel restrictions and the confiscation of Iranian
Central Bank assets under a U.S. court order. Russian U.N. Ambassador
Vitaly Churkin said the report contained factual errors and headings in
the report referring to 'restrictions' on Iranian ballistic missile
activities 'simply don't coincide with the subject of the report.' ...
Ban's report said ballistic missile launches by Iran in March were 'not
consistent with the constructive spirit' of the nuclear deal, but it is
up to the United Nations Security Council to decide if they violated a
resolution." http://t.uani.com/29LKbGA
Al-Monitor: "Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif, who led the nuclear negotiations on behalf of
Iran, spoke to Iranian television about the one-year anniversary of the
deal. 'If we want to give a grade to the BARJAM [the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action], in consideration of the time passed and
international situation certainly, it will receive a good grade,' Zarif
said. 'But if we want to give a grade to the method of implementation
by the Americans, likely they will receive a low grade.' According to
Zarif, some of the most significant accomplishments of the nuclear deal
are that Iran's right to enrichment was recognized, UN Security Council
resolutions against the country were removed and new sanctions against
Iran were avoided. He added that in every agreement, most sides must
leave happy, and there are no agreements where both sides acquire
everything they want. Abbas Araghchi, a nuclear negotiator and deputy
foreign minister, spoke to the Young Journalists Club about some of the
compromises Iran had had to make as a result of the nuclear deal. 'No
one can accuse us of making rogue decisions,' Araghchi said. 'On
certain matters, red lines were moved [from one place to another], the
first one being that all the sanctions would be removed. The Americans
said that the administration cannot remove all the sanctions passed by
Congress. If we would have insisted, it would have meant us not coming
to an agreement. On two or three matters, the foreign minister [Zarif]
gave reports to the supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei], and the
red lines were moved. It was not like this that we took rogue
actions.'" http://t.uani.com/29Snb93
Business
Risk
Kyodo: "In an ultimatum, Iranian
officials asked iPhone manufacturer Apple Inc. to either officially
register in Iran or have its products banned, a local news agency
reported Monday. 'If Apple will not register an official representative
in Iran within the next few days, all iPhones will be collected from
the market,' Tasnim News Agency quoted the director of Iran's
anti-smuggling office as having said on Sunday. More than 40 million
Iranians are using smart phones, including millions of iPhone users,
whose devices are often imported into the country by smugglers. A
representative from the anti-smuggling office told Tasnim that there is
no legal limitation to Apple registering a store in Iran." http://t.uani.com/29R7Bjm
Fars
(Iran):
"South Korean Ambassador to Tehran Kim Sung-ho expressed regret
over the continued banking restrictions on Iran even following the
nuclear deal, and said his country's mission in Tehran still smuggles
money for its budget spending. 'Relations between the Iranian banks and
their foreign counterparts as well as joint investments beside
facilitated investment measures should increase in Iran,' Kim Sung-ho
said, addressing the Bourse FINEX 2016 conference in Tehran on Monday.
'Those who have accepted the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the
last July nuclear deal between Tehran and the world powers), should now
persuade their banks to transfer Iran's monies to the country as
preventing them from doing this now is illegal,' he added. 'It is
unfortunate that the South Korean embassy is still transferring its
money to Iran through smuggling after 6 months of JCPOA's
implementation,' Kim Sung-ho said." http://t.uani.com/29SfCBN
Extremism
RFE/RL: "An Iranian official says a
kindergarten has been shut down in the capital over a mixed-gender
swimming pool. A welfare department official for Tehran Province,
Ebrahim Ghafari, announced the temporary closure in a July 19 interview
with the hard-line Tasnim news agency, which earlier this week
published a critical report that included photos in which young
children in boys' and girls' swimsuits could be seen together in a pool.
Tasnim had reported disapprovingly that the pool belonged to a
kindergarten on Africa Street in an affluent neighborhood of the
capital that had allowed mixed swimming and 'proudly' posted the
pictures on its official website." http://t.uani.com/2a5X7tm
Human
Rights
Reuters: "In the past nine months, the
Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least six dual-national Iranians,
their friends and family members say, the highest number of Iranians
with dual-nationality detained at one time in recent years to have been
acknowledged. The government has confirmed most of the detentions,
without giving details of any charges. Analysts say the circumstances
are often similar: arrest on arrival or departure from Tehran's
airport, the announcement of a period of interrogation followed by a
hardline website publishing a list of alleged crimes, usually plotting
to overthrow the government, before they set foot in court... According
to former prisoners, families of current ones and diplomats, in some
cases the detainees are kept to be used for a prisoner exchange with
Western countries... In late June, Zaghari-Ratcliffe's lead
interrogator presented an unusual proposal: her husband should pressure
the UK government 'to reach an agreement' and in exchange her case
would be closed before going to court. The interrogator did not give
any further details on what the agreement would entail, Ratcliffe told
Reuters. He said he relayed the proposal to the UK Foreign Office and
was told they had no information about any agreement. The interrogator
also told her mother during a visit to Evin prison last Wednesday that
the agreement he was referring to was an 'exchange,' Ratcliffe added."
http://t.uani.com/2ade87w
Opinion
& Analysis
John
Hannah in FP: "As
it was in the beginning, so it remains one year on: The overriding
danger of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the Iran nuclear
deal, is its provisions for automatically lifting the most important
restrictions on Iran's nuclear program by 2030. All the deal's other
shortcomings - of which there are many - largely pale in comparison.
Plausible arguments can be made that those reflect difficult but
necessary compromises, calculated risks that can be effectively
mitigated by aggressive enforcement efforts and U.S. determination to
confront Iranian aggression more broadly. Much harder to defend is a
sunset clause that paves the way for an unreconstructed Iran to become
a nuclear weapons threshold state in a mere 15 - wait, make that 14 -
years. That's not a calculated risk. That's a formula for strategic
disaster. Under the JCPOA, by 2030 Iran will be permitted to build an
industrial-size nuclear industry. It will be able to operate an
unlimited number of advanced centrifuges and accumulate as large a
stockpile of fissile material as it desires. That, in theory, includes
weapons-grade uranium. At that point, it would be weeks, maybe even
days, away from having the fuel for a small arsenal of nuclear weapons.
All of this legitimized by the United States and the rest of what
passes for the international community. Mind you, the JCPOA
green-lights Iran's move to within a screwdriver's turn of a nuke,
regardless of the country's behavior in the non-nuclear sphere. All of
the deal's restrictions disappear, even if Iran remains the world's
leading sponsor of terrorism, even if it continues to destabilize its
neighbors, and even if 'Death to America' and the annihilation of
Israel remain the regime's highest calling. White House assurances that
Iran's nuclear ambitions in 2030 will still be constrained effectively
by its adherence to the International Atomic Energy Agency's Additional
Protocol ring hollow. Even with intrusive inspections, the odds of
detecting in real time Iran's dash to a bomb will be perilously low
once the country possesses a massive nuclear infrastructure and
near-zero breakout time. At that point, hiding a series of small,
covert enrichment facilities spinning highly advanced centrifuges will
be child's play for a regime that has systematically practiced nuclear
deception for two decades. Under those circumstances, relying on the
IAEA's Additional Protocol to provide the United States with sufficient
warning to prevent an Iranian nuclear fait accompli would be folly
bordering on delusion. The sunset provisions of the JCPOA are a ticking
time bomb that needs to be defused. That means disabusing Iran of the
idea that the United States is prepared to accept any plans on Iran's
part to dramatically expand its enrichment capability (or plutonium reprocessing
and separation capability) once the JCPOA's restrictions expire. The
United States should make clear that it views the development of such a
capability as unnecessary for meeting Iran's legitimate civilian
nuclear energy needs, as well as highly destabilizing and threatening
to U.S. interests. The fact is that all of Iran's civil requirements
for enriched uranium can be met, securely and economically, through
contractual relationships with foreign suppliers that the JCPOA will
facilitate and enhance over the next 15 years. With the country's
legitimate enrichment needs met by a reliable and tested overseas
supply chain blessed (and even guaranteed) by the international
community, Iran's demands to develop an unconstrained capability to
produce fissile material indigenously should be firmly rejected as an
unacceptable danger to Middle East peace and security." http://t.uani.com/2adimfe
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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