Fars quoted AEOI spokesman Behrouze Kamalvandi as saying: “Iranian officials have reached a general agreement with the French side for joint cooperation on the global nuclear fusion megaproject known as ITER”. Tehran has slashed its stockpiles of uranium and heavy water in addition to pouring cement in the core of its Arak reactor as part of a process to convert it to a modified reactor that is seen as posing a much reduced nuclear-proliferation threat.
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In response, the U.S. Treasury Department slapped sanctions on two Iranian groups involved in the country’s nuclear missile program. But IAEA monitors have found the country so far has complied, including shipping the bulk of its enriched uranium to Russian Federation. Last month, he effectively endorsed it and said Iran no longer presented “an existential threat to Israel”. The expectation was that Iran would experience a first wave of economic relief by renewing ties with Asian and European companies, without affecting the other non-nuclear sanctions maintained by Washington. “But every time we got to deal with the ballistic missile sanctions against them, the White House would thwart any bipartisan effort”, McCarthy said.
The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Ali Akbar Salehi, visited ITER’s headquarters in France this month and discussed the prospect of Iran joining the project which was launched 10 years ago by Europe, the United States, China, India, Japan, Russia and South Korea. As President Barack Obama repeatedly insisted, the accord addressed one specific problem, and in those narrow terms, it can be judged a relative success. It spelled out the West’s obligation to end numerous financial, trade and oil sanctions that had battered Iran’s economy.
It took a two-year-long high-stakes campaign of diplomacy led by Secretary of State John Kerry and six world powers to finally seal the deal, despite many obstacles and critics who vowed to block a potential agreement.
The deal could face new challenges next year.
“From this vantage point, my worst fear expressed past year – that the JCPOA would actually increase the likelihood of conflict – may be coming true”, Cardin said, noting Iran has also restored relations with Hamas.
“The steps we’re seeing now could very well paralyze Iran policy in the next administration”, he says. We’re not guaranteeing you economic outcomes.
Hence, just as Tehran continues to worry about practical outcomes of the JCPOA, so does Washington: in the eye of Iranians, Washington is held accountable for the banking row and this in turn fosters mistrust! We should not relitigate this issue.
Channels for discussion created by seeking the agreement have allowed the U.S.to pursue other concerns with Tehran, including its activities in Syria and Yemen, he said.
In the U.S., Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton supports the deal, but Republican candidate Donald Trump says he would “renegotiate” it if he wins.
The Republican-controlled House, meanwhile, approved a bill to impose new sanctions on Iran for its continuing development and testing of its ballistic missile program.
President Obama’s administration has continued to instil faith in the Iran deal by marking it as a revolutionary project.
Lawmakers also were considering a measure that would restate US policy to deny the Iranian government and banks access to USA dollars.
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The deal “is critical to ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program is and will remain exclusively peaceful, which is profoundly in the national security interest of the US and the worldwide community”, according to the statement.
