December 20-2013
The 28 EU foreign ministers met in Brussels Monday and unanimously approved the interim nuclear agreement with Iran that three EU members—Britain, Germany and France—helped negotiate last month.
In a statement afterward, the EU ministers said they would suspend for six months the EU sanctions listed in the agreement as soon as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifies that Iran has carried out the “nuclear-related measures” in the agreement.
The EU did not make clear just what that meant. The agreement, for example, requires that the IAEA be given daily access to the enrichment facilities at Fordo and Natanz. But no one will know if Iran has provided daily access for the six months of the agreement until the six months are over.
The agreement also requires Iran to dilute half of its stock of 20 percent enriched uranium so it is less than 5 percent enriched. The EU statement made it sound as if Iran would have to complete that dilution before any sanctions would be suspended—a requirement not likely to be intended.
The EU statement was vaguely worded. It said the EU “is committed to … suspend those EU sanctions as set out in the [agreement] immediately after the IAEA has verified the implementation of the nuclear-related measures by Iran.”
The agreement also requires Iran to turn over a variety of documents to the IAEA. The EU statement did not make clear if Iran would have to turn over all those documents before the agreement would take effect or just start turning over some of them.
Iran seemed displeased by the vague statement. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzi-yeh Afkham said Tuesday that Iran expected everyone to pick one date when the agreement would take effect. “All parties should agree on one specific day for implementation,” she said. “On that given day, all parties must fulfill their commitments.”
The agreement requires actions that the US president can take on his own. But the EU requires unanimous agreement by its 28 members states. The sanctions were imposed unanimously and any modification to them required unanimous action. The ministers took that action Monday, but then added the trigger of IAEA verification.