Verifying Iran for the Longer Term

P5+1 negotiators are reportedly nearing an agreement with Iran that would dismantle some elements of Iran’s nuclear program while only providing limits on all other parts of the program. It also would maintain meaningful parameters that assure—at a minimum—a one-year breakout capability. The Iran Task Force has raised concerns about numerous aspects of the current trajectory of negotiations and the P5+1’s concessions to Iran throughout the negotiations. The following memo addresses one such area of concern, namely the “sunset” of enhanced verification requirements.

Although we don’t yet know what a final deal will look like, a robust and intrusive verification regime, and in particular the details about the inspections conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is of utmost importance. And these international verification efforts in Iran cannot simply end when the comprehensive agreement sunsets. Supplementary safeguards measures that extend beyond the Additional Protocol (called AP-plus) are essential if the IAEA is to monitor verifiably a comprehensive nuclear agreement. The IAEA can only return to “routine” inspections under the AP when the IAEA is certain that all nuclear material and activities in Iran are being used exclusively for peaceful purposes. Since AP-plus access is negotiated by the P5+1, and enforced by a U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolution, the UNSC also has to conclude that Iran has fully restored its non-proliferation credentials before these supplementary safeguards measures are reduced.

The elements of the deal currently being negotiated appear to include, inter alia, about 6,000 operating IR-1 centrifuges, or an equivalent enrichment capacity of Separative Work Units (SWU); capping stocks of enriched uranium remaining in Iran; continued research and development on advanced centrifuges; and a research-reactor reconfiguration for Arak, which will irreversibly reduce its plutonium production capacity.

The full memo may be downloaded below.