The revelation earlier this week of a secret document of the Iran nuclear deal shows that the P5+1 group of global powers have legitimized Iran’s uranium enrichment program, a leading nuclear proliferation expert said Tueseday.
Emily Landau, head of the Arms Control and Regional Security Program at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, told the The Jerusalem Post that the details of the secret agreement,which allowed the Islamic Republic to use advanced centrifuges during the tenth year of the agreement, thus cutting its nuclear breakout time significantly, was the cause for “a big concern – that Iran is allowed to work on research and development of a full range of advanced centrifuge models.”
It was widely assumed that Iran would try to work on developing advanced centrifuges, which enrich several times faster than the first generation centrifuges Iran currently has deployed, Landau explained. However, “the difference between Iran saying that it plans to develop new centrifuges, and the revelation of a document that says the P5+1 countries agreed to so many centrifuges being installed, is substantial. The very fact that the JCPOA enables this, on a whole range of centrifuges, is problematic. It just proves that Iran’s enrichment program has been totally legitimized by this deal.”
In an article written before the Associated Press reported on the secret document, Landau addressed the consequences of the deal legitimizing Iran’s nuclear program:
Beyond the troubling reality that the deal will expire in 10-15 years regardless of whether there are clear indications that Iran has foregone its military nuclear ambitions, and over and above the fact that the deal legitimizes Iran’s uranium enrichment program and by implication its nuclear threshold status, the final text of the JCPOA makes additional P5+1 concessions which undermine its ability to ensure a non-nuclear Iran in the future.
Following the revelation of the secret document, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif boasted that Iran would restore its full uranium enrichment program after the tenth year of the nuclear deal as “a matter of pride.”
The nuclear deal allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium, even though its enrichment activities were in defiance of its Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty obligations and led to multiple UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions.
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