The secret deals let Iran exceed the stated limit on how much low-enriched uranium – which can be purified to weapons-grade material – it retains.
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The Journal also reported that Orange would have to adroitly handle the fact that MCI’s parent company, Telecommunication Co. of Iran, is owned by a group of companies that in some cases lead back to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
David Albright, the institute’s founder and president, and a nuclear physicist previously employed by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency co-wrote the report.
“The Joint Commission was created in part to address implementation issues and distinguish between attempts to circumvent the deal’s limits and technical issues”, she said. According to Albright, the allowances were made so that an economic deadline could be met for Iran. “It’s point seven, it’s explicit in the agreement, it’s in black and white, and it doesn’t say “usable.’ It says ‘will keep its uranium stockpile under 300 kilograms of up to 3.67 enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6), or the equivalent in other chemical forms”…
The report, published by the Institute for Science and International Security, renewed charges from opponents of the deal that the Obama administration is being too secretive about the pact.
“There’s been no cutting of slack”, he added.
Obama spokesman Josh Earnest conceded he has not “read the precise report” but refuted the notion that Tehran is not in compliance with the worldwide agreement. “That is, if we assume Iran does not cheat on the agreement first”. That’s not my opinion. “That’s not my opinion, that’s not rhetoric, that’s not conjecture”.
The company did not specifically confirm or deny this but said: “Like many other worldwide operators, Orange has been considering opportunities in the Iranian market subsequent to the implementation of the JCPOA”.
Albright said the exceptions risked setting precedents that Iran could use to seek additional waivers.
Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, a leading critic of the Iran deal and a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Reuters in an email: “I was not aware nor did I receive any briefing (on the exemptions)”.
PressTV reports that the project would take ten years to complete and cost around $10 billion.
His report also says that Iran was allowed to maintain some material enriched at 20 percent – a critical threshold in the enrichment process.
The administration’s silence on sanctioning the sale has sparked a fresh round of criticism from lawmakers.
“The trend, in my mind, is not good”.
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Orange is looking to develop a partnership, rather than discussing a purchase of a stake in the Iranian carrier, said a person familiar with the situation, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.
