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| Regional Allies Won't Trust President Obama |
Despite threats from Obama administration officials that the United States would abandon talks if Iran continued to demand greater concessions, Kerry extended his trip and conducted a series of meetings aimed at hashing out a statement of progress, a far cry from the detailed document officials vowed would be finalized by now.
“None of those measures” will move to scale back Iran’s program “include closing any of our facilities,” said Javid Zarif, Irans negotiator and Kerry's counterpart. “We will continue enriching; we will continue research and development.”
“Our heavy water reactor will be modernized and we will continue the Fordow facility,” Zarif said. “We will have centrifuges installed in Fordow, but not enriching.”
The move to allow Iran to keep centrifuges at Fordow, a controversial onetime military site, has elicited concern that Tehran could ramp up its nuclear work with ease.
Zarif said that once a final agreement is made, “all U.S. nuclear related secondary sanctions will be terminated,” he said. “This, I think, would be a major step forward.”
Zarif also revealed that Iran will be allowed to sell “enriched uranium” in the international market place and will be “hopefully making some money” from it.
European Union High Representative Federica Mogherini said in a statement that the sides had “taken a decisive step” in paving over disagreements on key fronts and would now work “for a final deal” by June.
In return, the United States and international partners will work to “terminate” all of the “nuclear-related sanctions” currently being imposed on Iran.
The United Nations also will move to endorse the ongoing Joint Plan of Action interim deal and terminate all of its previous security council resolutions on Iran.
The Fordow nuclear facility will eventually be “converted from an enrichment site to a nuclear psychics and tech center,” Mongherini said. No fissile material such as uranium will be permitted at the former military site.
However, this could allow Iran to continue running thousands of nuclear centrifuges that could be used to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels.
“As Iran pursues a peaceful nuclear program,” it will tentatively agree to limit its nuclear enrichment capabilities and stockpiles for a specific duration, according to Mongherini’s statement, which was also read in Persian by Zarif.
Iran also will undertake a “joint venture” to redesign and modernize its heavy water reactor at Arak, a site that has raised concerns about the plutonium path to a nuclear bomb.
The site “will not produce weapons-grade plutonium,” according to the statement.
“We’ve done significant work,” Zarif said after the joint statements had been read. “We’ve taken a major step, but we’re still some time away from reaching where we want to be.”
Many concessions Iran has pushed for in recent days have now been agreed to by the United States, according to multiple reports and sources.
Prior to the news conference, Zarif informed the Iranian state-controlled press that “no agreement will be signed” in the near term.
“We have said right from the beginning that no agreement would be signed today. We have always stated that there could be only one agreement which could go into effect at the end of the talks on July 1 if everything goes well,” he was quoted as saying.Zarif told reporters late Wednesday amid meetings with the United States and other P5+1 one nations that he was “all smiles” after days of intensive talks in which Tehran has given little ground on American efforts to reduce the size of its nuclear program and uranium stockpiles.
Keep in mind - this is now the fourth delay in agreement talks over Iran's nuclear power and Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and other allies in the Middle East neighborhood do not trust President Obama.
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