{"id":7131,"date":"2019-11-21T17:02:11","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T14:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/?p=7131"},"modified":"2019-11-21T18:00:46","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T15:00:46","slug":"iran-mulls-over-quitting-the-npt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/monitoring-and-translation\/reports\/iran-mulls-over-quitting-the-npt\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran Mulls Over Quitting the NPT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Iran\u2019s Ambassador to the UK Hamid\nBaeidinejad did not mince his words when he spoke<\/a>\nof the possibility of Iran quitting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty\n(NPT)  if Europe fails to provide relief\nfrom crippling US sanctions imposed on Tehran. \nHe also  defended Tehran\u2019s\ndecision to stop<\/a>\nan International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspector  from entering its Natanz nuclear site because\nshe \u201ctested positive for explosive nitrates.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Baeidinejad spoke of Iran\u2019s possible  fifth step, which appears to be quitting the\nJCPOA if the IAEA reports adversely on Iran\u2019s activities to its board as well\nas to the UN Security Council. Tehran plans its next breach of the JCPOA after\ntwo months. Baeidinejad said, \u201cI  understand<\/a>\nthe concern that after more of these steps we run out of initiatives and have\nsteps which are not easily reversible and this will affect the implementation\nof the JCPOA, that is why we are asking our partners to fulfill their\nobligations and resolve this issue and protect the JCPOA.\u201d He said the NPT is\nin \u201ctotal jeopardy.\u201d He hinted at internal pressure on the government to quit\nthe NPT  but  hastened<\/a>  to add, \u201cThat is not the policy of the\ngovernment. President [Hassan] Rouhani and the government of Iran are trying\ntheir best to convince the people, all the people, and important\npersonalities.\u201d He  further<\/a>  added, \u201cBut unfortunately, after problems\nwith the JCPOA more and more people are listening to arguments to leave the\nNPT.\u201d Iran\u2019s diplomat was cleverly conveying his government\u2019s intent to quit\nthe NPT which  prevents  Iran from developing nuclear weapons.\nBaeidinejad\u2019s remarks alarmed  world\npowers as well as Iran\u2019s neighbors, so much so that Iran\u2019s Foreign Ministry\nSpokesman Abbas Mousavi had to clarify<\/a> that\nthere is no plan yet to quit the NPT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of this comes  against the backdrop of Iran resum<\/a>ing <\/a> the construction of  its second nuclear power reactor in Bushehr,\nin violation of its JCPOA obligations. The \nBushehr nuclear facility relies on 4.5 enriched uranium which exceeds\nthe permitted limit under the JCPOA. To avert the Russians playing their\npledged part in the Bushehr plant’s expansion, Washington has revoked sanction waiver<\/a>s on cooperation with Iran\u2019s civilian nuclear program. The\nsecond unit of the plant should require six years to become online while the\nthird unit should require eight  years at\na whopping cost of $10 billion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since October, Iran has activated\nthree (164-machine) cascades of IR-2m, IR-4 and IR-6 centrifuges besides\ninstalling newer models of centrifuges<\/a> IR-8s, IR-8B, IR-9. Iran has now increased its monthly\nproduction of enriched uranium from 70-80 kilograms to over 100 kilograms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would expect that this 100\nkilos per month becomes much higher. I don\u2019t know whether it will become 150,\n170 or 200,\u201d reported Reuter<\/a>s\nquoting an anonymous senior Iranian diplomat. Iran has significantly higher\nenriched uranium reserves more than  the\n202.8-kilogram cap agreed upon in the JCPOA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran has also started enriching\nuranium at its underground Fordow nuclear facility in violation of the JCPOA.\nTehran defiantly announced that it has started \u201cinjecting<\/a>\n(uranium hexafluoride) gas into the centrifuges in Fordow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IAEA has, meanwhile, reported\nthat Iran has failed to satisfy it about radioactive samples discovered at its\nTurquzabad site, near Tehran. The IAEA\u2019s top inspector, Massimo Aparo,\nreportedly told<\/a>\ndiplomats last week that Tehran was not cooperating in tracing the source of\nman-made and natural uranium particles found at the warehouse recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran threatens to withdraw\nfrom the JCPOA as well as the NPT in order to shock the world with the specter\nof its nuclear weapons, which can simply outbalance Gulf and Middle Eastern\nsecurity. Thus, it assumes that European partners in the nuclear deal, namely,\nFrance, Germany, and the UK must ensure full compliance with their obligations,\nranging from economic to political and diplomatic cooperation with Iran. The\nultimate blackmail of reviving nuclear ambitions is a dangerous game,\nespecially when Iran has been reluctant in going forward with legislation and\nexecutive action against money-laundering. Without adhering to conditionalities\nof the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Tehran won\u2019t be able to make a\nconvincing case for the operationalization of the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges<\/a>\n(INSTEX). Or else, Iran gets blacklisted by the FATF in February and INSTEX\nwon\u2019t be of any good. The French-led initiative has proved a non-starter\ndespite the pledges and hopes of the Rouhani government. Ambitious\npre-conditions set by the Rouhani government led to the failure of Macron\u2019s\nmediation bid in New York. Trump appeared willing to sit with his Iranian\ncounterpart. Yet no meager start could be made despite the perfect diplomatic\nsequencing. Neither side even agreed to speak over the phone.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the coming weeks, the IAEA will\nchalk out a plan for thorough and widespread inspections of already listed as\nwell as suspicious military sites for nuclear compliance. Legally, Tehran can\u2019t\ndeny access to the IAEA  to any site or\nlocation it wants to inspect. Delaying tactics will also be interpreted as a\nhindrance. Amidst the ongoing protests in Iran, it is likely that the\ngovernment may show temporary flexibility to evade the IAEA board\u2019s adverse\nreport and referral to the UN Security Council.   Baeidinejad has linked Iran\u2019s likely abandonment\nof the fruitless JCPOA with writing-off its NPT obligations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the North Korean\ntemplate, Iran has continued building research, design and enrichment\nfacilities for nuclear bombs. If Pyongyang can conduct multiple nuclear tests\nwhile being an NPT signatory, why should Tehran quit the accord? It is fair to\nassume that Iran is raising the specter of signing off on its commitments as a\nnon-nuclear state and is considering other prime options such as reviving its\ndevelopment of nuclear weapons. The future course of Iran\u2019s nuclear policy\ndepends on the IAEA plan of action. The IAEA\u2019s \nnew chief has the gigantic responsibility of not only keeping the NPT\nintact but making its compliance more stringent and transparent. The NPT  is set for periodical review in 2020. \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran\u2019s Ambassador to the UK Hamid Baeidinejad did not mince his words when he spoke of the possibility of Iran quitting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if Europe fails to provide relief from crippling US sanctions imposed on Tehran. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7132,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3358,3359,2475,12,3357,2534,2466,2731,1031],"class_list":["post-7131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports","tag-hamid-baeidinejad","tag-international-atomic-energy-agency","tag-international-institute-for-iranian-studies","tag-iran","tag-iran-mulls","tag-npt","tag-rasanah","tag-rasanah-issues","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7131"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7134,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7131\/revisions\/7134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}