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Context
- U.S. President Donald Trump recently refused to certify the Iranian nuclear agreement with Iran and six other major world powers.
What is the significance of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)?
- The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is an international agreement on the nuclear program of Iran on 14 July 2015 between Iran, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council Germany and the European Union.
What are the Major provisions of the agreement?
- Under the agreement, Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium,
- Cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%
- Reduce by about two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges for 13 years.
- For the next 15 years, Iran will only enrich uranium up to 3.67%.
- To monitor and verify Iran’s compliance with the agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will have regular access to all Iranian nuclear facilities.
How will the deal benefit Iran?
- After the implementation by Iran of the nuclear-related measures, the UN sanctions against Iran and some EU sanctions will terminate and some will be suspended.
- Once sanctions are lifted, Iran will recover approximately $100 billion of its assets frozen in overseas banks
- EU sanctions against a number of Iranian companies, individuals and will be lifted
What is IAEA?
- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons.
- It is the world’s central intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical co-operation in the nuclear field.
- It works for the safe, secure and peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology, contributing to international peace and security and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
- The programs of the IAEA encourage the development of the peaceful applications of nuclear technology, provide international safeguards against misuse of nuclear technology and nuclear materials, and promote nuclear safety
Why were the sanctions imposed?
- Iran signed the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in 1968 as a non-nuclear weapons state and ratified the NPT in 1970.
- In August 2002, the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, an Iranian dissident group, publicly revealed the existence of two undeclared nuclear facilities,
- the Arak heavy-water production facility
- the Natanz enrichment facility.
- The IAEA report the following month concluded that Iran had failed to meet its obligations under the previous agreement.
- In September 2009, U.S. President revealed the existence of an underground enrichment facility in Fordow, near Qom
- The decision to build nuclear facility without notifying the IAEA represents a direct challenge to the basic compact at the center of the non-proliferation regime
- On 24 November 2013, the Joint Plan of Action, an interim agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, was signed between Iran and the P5+1 countries in Geneva, Switzerland.
What may be the implications of this decision?
- The implications of the breakdown are not limited to U.S.-Iran relations.
- Iran can make things difficult for the U.S. in Afghanistan as also in Iraq and Syria.
- The U.S.’s ability to work with Russia in Syria or with China regarding North Korea will also be impacted.
- Coming after the rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate change accord and the North American Free Trade Agreement, this decision further diminishes its credibility in managing its foreign policy
- Trumps decision to discredit JCPOA shall implicit renegotiation of the deal, that would attract a veto by both Russia and China were it to be taken up in the UNSC.
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