July 11, 2014
The nuclear negotiators are all nestled in their seats in Vienna prepared with lots of snacks for a long negotiation with at least 10 major topics that must be solved before they can produce an agreement.
Here is a rundown of the key issues before the negotiators.
1—Number of centrifuges
This has gotten the most attention, which makes it harder to reach a compromise because there are hardline politicians in both Washington and Tehran ready to jump on this number. In Tehran, officials have spoken of needing 50,000 centrifuges. Indeed, the Natanz enrichment plant was designed to hold 54,000 centrifuges and the Fordo site about 3,000.
Many in the West have said Iran should only be allowed a few hundred, though Washington appears prepared to agree to a few thousand. Iran currently has 19,000 centrifuges installed, although only about 9,000 have ever been used to enrich uranium.
News reports last week said Iran came into this latest round of talks proposing a smaller number of centrifuges than before. But Reuters quoted an unnamed diplomat in Vienna as saying the new number “is still unacceptably high.” No one has yet cited what the new Iranian number is.
However, this report of smaller numbers being acceptable took a beating Tuesday when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi’s website said he told officials Iran needed 190,000 centrifuges or 10 times the number now installed.
Khamenehi said Iran would eventually require a capacity of 190,000 “separative work units (SWUs),” which is a technical measure of the ability to enrich. He said one of Iran’s current IR-1 centrifuges produces one separative work unit. While that is not correct, it indicated he wanted 190,000 centrifuges of the current type or its equivalent of a more efficient centrifuge.
Ali-Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, later said different centrifuges have different SWU outputs. He said Iran’s IR-1 has an output of two SWUs, so 95,000 of them would produce enough enriched uranium to fuel Iran’s three current needs: Bushehr, Arak and the Tehran Research Reactor. But if Iran switched to a much more modern centrifuge, the IR-4, it would need fewer centrifuges. Salehi said the IR-4 has an output of 24 SWUs, the first time such a figure has been given. That would mean Iran would need 8,000 IR-4s to produce as much enriched uranium as 95,000 IR-1s.
But Iran has announced plans eventually to produce 20 times as much electricity from nuclear power as it is currently producing at Bushehr. Salehi did not a lot any SWUs for those planned plants.
2—Stock of enriched uranium
This gets very little attention, but may be more important than the number of centrifuges. The issue is the quantity of enriched uranium that Iran will be permitted to keep on hand. The fear is that Iran could “break out,” taking its stock of uranium enriched to less than 5 percent and rushing to further enrich it to weapons-grade of 90 percent. Strange as it seems, it takes more time to enrich to 5 percent than to go from 5 percent to 90 percent.
Iran says it needs the fuel to run nuclear power plants. But it has only a single such plant at Bushehr and Russia holds a contract to supply the fuel for it until 2021. Iran plans to build many more nuclear power plants, but it doesn’t yet have a single one under contract so it has trouble justifying enrichment today that would build up unused stock.
With nothing to do with most of the enriched uranium Iran is now producing, its stock will just keep on growing in the coming decade—unless there is a ceiling placed on what volume it can keep on hand.
3—Fordo enrichment plant
The Big Six have called for the Fordo enrichment plant, which is built inside a mountain as a defense against air attack, to be closed. Iran has very loudly and repeatedly said it will not do so. Fordo only has space for 3,000 centrifuges. Some think the attention given Fordo by both sides is an intentional distraction, meant to allow Washington to make a major “concession” by allowing Fordo to remain open and Iran to claim it has outwitted the West and won a major point by keeping Fordo.
On his website Tuesday, Khamenehi made a point of calling the proposal to shut down Fordo “laughable.”
4—Next generation centrifuges
All the centrifuges now in use by Iran are what it calls the IR-1 design, which is actually a 1960s’ European design. Iran has been working on more advanced, speedier and less fragile models that it wants to shift to. The Big Six want to restrict Iran from adopting designs that can enrich much more quickly.
5—Intrusive inspections & Additional Protocol
The Big Six want to be able to poke around Iran and look at suspicious sites to make sure the Islamic Republic is not cheating on any agreement. The main medium for that is what is called an Additional Protocol, providing inspection mechanisms in addition to those under a country’s basic agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Additional Protocol is not a standard document. Each country has its own variant, and the Big Six likely want a tighter Additional Protocol than one for Spain or Thailand.
The Majlis has enacted legislation barring the government from adhering to an Additional Protocol, so it will require Majlis action to bring back an Additional Protocol. However, that will not likely be the impediment many ascribe to it. For any agreement to be signed by Iran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi will have to give it his imprimatur first. Once he does that, the Majlis cannot object to any Additional Protocol.
6—Arak reactor
Iran is building a heavy water reactor at Arak that can produce plutonium. (Plutonium and uranium are the two different foundations that can be used for nuclear weapons.) Iran has said it is willing to modify the Arak design to take away the concerns the Big Six have—but not to end its ability to produce plutonium. The modifications Iran has publicly mentioned are not modifications that Western officials have said are satisfactory.
7—Sanctions
For Iran, the benefit it seeks is the lifting of sanctions. In the interim agreement reached last November, the Big Six pledged to lift all “nuclear-related” sanctions. It did not address sanctions related to human rights violations, terrorism and other Iranian policies that offend in the West. The Supreme Leader has been saying for several years that it is a waste of time to negotiate a nuclear agreement because all the West would do is switch to some other issue and flail Iran over, say, human rights violations.
The other sanctions issue is the speed of relief. Iran seems to have accepted that all sanctions will not go away upon the signing of an agreement, but it is not happy at the prospect that some nuclear-related sanctions would remain in place for years. The US is talking about a tiered system in which sanctions would be lifted bit-by-bit as Iran progressively complies with any agreement.
A key issue is what restrictions are lifted swiftly. If Washington proposed to lift every single sanction immediately but to keep in place the banking restrictions, Iran would be unlikely to accept that. Many sanctions are insignificant while just a handful—like the banking restrictions—are dreadfully punitive.
8—IAEA probe of past nuclear research
Successive UN resolutions have required Iran to tell all about its past nuclear research, which is widely assumed to have included work on bomb building. Iran has long dragged its feet on answering those queries.
A number of US diplomats have conceded that it is probably too much to ask the Islamic Republic to confess publicly to having lied for decades. Furthermore, exposing weapons work in the 1990s has nothing to do with stopping weapons work in the 21st Century.
It looks like the Big Six will not make a major issue of these UN resolutions. But the Big Six will probably seek to leave the resolutions in place and could raise the topic of compliance years down the road if there is suspicion that Iran is cheating on any part of a new deal.
9—Ballistic missiles
Iran has said repeatedly that it will not discuss ballistic missiles in these talks, which Iran insists be devoted solely to nuclear issues. But, as Washington points out, the interim agreement signed last November specifically says the agenda of these talks includes all four UN resolutions—and those resolutions reference ballistic missiles.
Washington reportedly wants to see range limits imposed on Iran’s missiles, so that they could not hit Western Europe or the United States.
A missile with the range to hit the other side of the globe is so expensive that it is worthless without a nuclear warhead. So, if Iran refuses any range limits it would be seen elsewhere in the world as a confession of intent to target the United States with a nuclear weapon. The US Congress would not likely approve any agreement lacking a range limit—and a range limit would not impede Iran from anything other than attacking the United States.
10—Duration of new agreement
The Big Six have already conceded that any new agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program will not be permanent. The issue is how long any restrictions will apply—after which expiration date Iran will able to enrich to its heart’s content. The West wants the agreement to apply for decades. Iran has spoken of a few years—which appears to be viewed as laughable even by the Russian and Chinese.
The Los Angeles Times reported Friday that the Islamic Republic has now accepted five years as the duration while the Big Six were down to 20.
A number of analysts have surmised that Iran would be willing to accept much tougher limits—like only a thousand centrifuges—if the duration of the agreement were much shorter.
11—Raw uranium supply
This is a topic that hasn’t appeared in public discussion at all. Iran has very little uranium ore that can be mined at reasonable cost. If Iran is going to keep its centrifuges spinning with something inside them, it will need to import uranium ore. It is quote possible—in fact, likely—that the major powers will clamp down on sales of uranium ore to Iran. Indeed, they have already done so. If Iran doesn’t get a promise of access to uranium ore in this agreement, nothing else in the agreement may matter, as the Islamic Republic will have little to enrich.
The need to import uranium ore exposes the lack of a non-military rationale for Iran’s nuclear program. Iran argues that it requires nuclear power in order to be energy independent when its oil and gas run out. But it has more oil and gas than almost any other country, while it doesn’t have enough uranium to power all the nuclear power plants it says it plans to build (a capacity of 20,000 megawatts) for even a half year.