• pub­lished: 24 Nov 2013
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BREAK­ING: Is­raeli cab­i­net min­is­ter: Iran deal based on `de­ceit,' Is­rael can't cel­e­brate. (NYTimes.​com) GENE­VA — The for­eign pol­i­cy chief of the Eu­ro­pean Union and Ira­ni­an of­fi­cials an­nounced a land­mark ac­cord Sun­day morn­ing that would tem­porar­i­ly freeze Tehran's nu­cle­ar pro­gram and lay the foun­da­tion for a more sweep­ing ac­cord. After marathon talks that fi­nal­ly ended early Sun­day morn­ing, the Unit­ed States and five other world pow­ers reached an agree­ment with Iran to halt much of Iran's nu­cle­ar pro­gram. It was the first time in near­ly a decade, Amer­i­can of­fi­cials said, that steps had been taken to stop much of Iran's nu­cle­ar ef­fort and even roll some el­e­ments back. The freeze would last six months, with the aim of giv­ing in­ter­na­tion­al ne­go­tia­tors time to pur­sue the far more chal­leng­ing task of draft­ing a com­pre­hen­sive ac­cord that would ratch­et back much of Iran's nu­cle­ar pro­gram and en­sure that it could be used only for peace­ful pur­pos­es. "We have reached agree­ment," Cather­ine Ash­ton, the Eu­ro­pean Union's chief for­eign pol­i­cy of­fi­cial, post­ed on Twit­ter on Sun­day morn­ing. Ac­cord­ing to the ac­cord, Iran would agree to stop en­rich­ing ura­ni­um be­yond 5 per­cent. To make good on that pledge, Iran would dis­man­tle the links be­tween net­works of cen­trifuges. All of Iran's stock­pile of ura­ni­um that has been en­riched to 20 per­cent, a short hop to weapons-grade fuel, would be di­lut­ed or con­vert­ed into oxide so that it could not be read­i­ly used for mil­i­tary pur­pos­es. No new cen­trifuges, nei­ther old mod­els nor newer more ef­fi­cient ones, could be in­stalled. Cen­trifuges that have been in­stalled but which are not cur­rent­ly op­er­at­ing — Iran has more than 8,000 such cen­trifuges — could not be start­ed up. No new en­rich­ment fa­cil­i­ties could be es­tab­lished. The agree­ment, how­ev­er, would not re­quire Iran to stop en­rich­ing ura­ni­um to a level of 3.5 per­cent or dis­man­tle any of its ex­ist­ing cen­trifuges. Iran's stock­pile of such low-en­riched ura­ni­um would be al­lowed to tem­porar­i­ly in­crease to about eight tons from seven tons cur­rent­ly. But Tehran would be re­quired to shrink this stock­pile by the end of the six-month agree­ment back to seven tons. This would be done by in­stalling equip­ment to covert some of that stock­pile to oxide. To guard against cheat­ing, in­ter­na­tion­al mon­i­tors would be al­lowed to visit the Natanz en­rich­ment fa­cil­i­ty and the un­der­ground nu­cle­ar en­rich­ment plant at Fordo on a daily basis to check the film from cam­eras in­stalled there. In re­turn for the ini­tial agree­ment, the Unit­ed States has agreed to pro­vide $6 bil­lion to $7 bil­lion in sanc­tions re­lief, Amer­i­can of­fi­cials said. This lim­it­ed sanc­tions re­lief can be ac­com­plished by ex­ec­u­tive order, al­low­ing the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion to make the deal with­out hav­ing to ap­peal to Congress, where there is strong crit­i­cism of any agree­ment that does not fully dis­man­tle Iran's nu­cle­ar pro­gram. With law­mak­ers in Wash­ing­ton vow­ing to pro­pose tougher sanc­tions next month if the Ira­ni­an pro­gram is not halt­ed, and hard-lin­ers in Tehran in­sist­ing that Iran never ca­pit­u­late on its nu­cle­ar "rights," the ne­go­tia­tors were ef­fec­tive­ly locked in a race against time. Ex­pec­ta­tions were high that a deal was in the off­ing on Sat­ur­day morn­ing, when Sec­re­tary of State John Kerry and top diplo­mats from five other world pow­ers swept into Gene­va to con­clude the talks and, they hoped, sign the agree­ment. Going into Sat­ur­day's talks, a major stick­ing point in­volved the con­straints that would be im­posed on a pro­ject that Iran is pur­su­ing to pro­duce plu­to­ni­um, which in­volves the con­struc­tion of a heavy water re­ac­tor near the town of Arak. Mr. Kerry met with his French and Rus­sian coun­ter­parts be­fore join­ing a three-way ses­sion with Mo­ham­mad Javad Zarif, the Ira­ni­an for­eign min­is­ter, and Ms. Ash­ton, the first of two such ses­sions on Sat­ur­day. Late on Sat­ur­day, a spokeswom­an for the Rus­sian del­e­ga­tion said the two sides were "very close." The wran­gling be­hind closed doors re­called the round in Gene­va two weeks ear­li­er, which seemed to be tan­ta­liz­ing­ly close to a break­through only to sput­ter to an end as France pressed the world pow­ers to tough­en their de­mands, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing the Arak plant, and Iran balked at the new terms. There were also other sticky is­sues, in­clud­ing Iran's in­sis­tence that it had the right to en­rich ura­ni­um. At the end of that round of ne­go­ti­a­tions, the world pow­ers pre­sent­ed a uni­fied pro­pos­al, and the Ira­ni­ans said they need­ed to con­sult with the au­thor­i­ties in Tehran be­fore pro­ceed­ing. Obama Iran Ali Khamenei Pres­i­dent Has­san Rouhani nu­cle­ar weapon Is­rael Ne­tanyahu Obama Iran Ali Khamenei Pres­i­dent Has­san Rouhani nu­cle­ar weapon Is­rael Ne­tanyahu Obama Iran Ali Khamenei Pres­i­dent Has­san Rouhani nu­cle­ar weapon Is­rael Ne­tanyahu Obama Iran Ali Khamenei Pres­i­dent Has­san Rouhani nu­cle­ar weapon Is­rael Ne­tanyahu Obama Iran Ali Khamenei Pres­i­dent Has­san Rouhani nu­cle­ar weapon Is­rael Ne­tanyahu