Tag: Enrichment Right

Essays, Publications

Agreeing on Limits for Iran’s Centrifuge Program: A Two-Stage Strategy

Posted on

An early version of this article appeared online June 9 because of the high interest in the ongoing negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. The version below, which also appears in the print edition of the July/August issue of Arms Control Today, was updated to reflect minor editorial changes to the previously posted version. 

Iran is negotiating with a group of six states over the future of its nuclear program. In November 2013, Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) agreed to a Joint Plan of Action that seeks to reach a “comprehensive solution” by July 20, 2014. The goal is to agree on a set of measures that can provide reasonable assurance that Iran’s nuclear program will be used only for peaceful purposes and thus enable the lifting of international sanctions imposed on Iran over the past decade because of proliferation concerns.

A key challenge is to agree how to limit Iran’s uranium-enrichment program, which is based on gas centrifuges, in a way that would enable Iran to meet what it sees as its future needs for low-enriched uranium fuel for nuclear research and power reactors while forestalling the possibility that this program could be adapted to quickly produce highly enriched uranium at levels and in amounts suitable for nuclear weapons.

This article proposes a compromise based on a two-stage approach that involves Iran maintaining a capacity for enriching a small amount of uranium annually for research reactor fuel in the short term and developing a potential enrichment capacity in the longer term that would be appropriate to fuel power reactors. Iranian supply needs for its power reactors will develop in 2021 if Tehran decides to fuel the existing Bushehr power reactor domestically, in whole or in part, rather than renewing its fuel supply contract with Russia or buying fuel from another foreign supplier.

The proposed compromise also reflects Tehran’s plan to shift from its current low-power, first-generation centrifuges to high-capacity machines that are still under development.

This article therefore suggests that, during the next five years, Iran should modernize its enrichment facilities and in doing so, keep its operating capacity at about the current level rather than begin to operate the many thousands of first-generation machines that it already has installed and continue setting up more. During this period, Iran could phase out its first-generation machines in favor of the second-generation centrifuges it already has installed but has not yet operated. At the same time, it could develop, produce, and store components for a future generation of centrifuges that would be suitable for commercial-scale deployment. These later-generation centrifuges would not need to be assembled, except for test machines, until at least 2019.

To maintain the confidence of the international community that there will be no diversion of centrifuge components to a secret enrichment plant, the current transparency measures that Iran has undertaken for its centrifuge program would continue. These transparency measures should become the standard for transparency for centrifuge production worldwide.

Finally, the article suggests that the five-year period created by this proposal be used as an opportunity by Iran, the P5+1, and other interested states to explore in a second stage of the negotiations a multinational uranium-enrichment arrangement that would see Iran deploy its advanced centrifuges in a new regional, multinational facility rather than a national enrichment plant. By committing to working on such multinational arrangements for the Middle East and, ultimately, around the world, Iran and the P5+1 could chart a path to greatly reduce the proliferation risks that stem from national control of enrichment plants, regardless of location.

Read Latest Report

Latest Version:

“Agreeing on Limits for Iran’s Centrifuge Program: A Two-Stage Strategy,” Arms Control Today, Alexander Glaser, Zia Mian, Seyed Hossein Mousavian and Frank von Hippel. Published by Arms Control Today, July/August, 2014.

Older Version:

“Agreeing on Limits for Iran’s Centrifuge Program: A Two-Stage Strategy,” Arms Control Today, Alexander Glaser, Zia Mian, Seyed Hossein Mousavian and Frank von Hippel. Published by Arms Control Today, June 9, 2014.

Interviews

A compromise proposal for nuclear talks with Iran

Posted on

As American and Iranian officials meet in Geneva to try to find a way through the impasse holding up a comprehensive multilateral deal onIran‘s nuclear programme, a group of Princeton University academics have sent them a proposed road-map on how to get around the blockage.

The Princeton report, published on the Arms Control Today website, focuses on the core issue that has proved most problematic in the four months of talks so far – Iran’s future capacity for enriching uranium. This has hitherto been such a gap to bridge because Iran and the West come at it from entirely different perspectives.

The Princeton compromise is a two-stage approach, allowing a very limited enrichment capacity for the existing research reactor in Tehran in the short term, but with the flexibility to expand that capacity to keep pace with the construction of future nuclear power stations in the long term. The existing contract for Russian nuclear fuel rods for Bushehr expires in 2021. If Tehran decides it wants to use it own rods after that, then its enrichment capacity would be stepped up as that deadline approaches, but not before 2019.

In the intervening five years, Iran would focus on modernising its enrichment plant, replacing the now ancient and inefficient IR-1 centrifuges, based on half-century old technology, with a new generation of IR-2m centrifuges, with about five times the capacity. As the new machines were installed in this first phase, total capacity would remain the same. Even more advanced centrifuges would be developed with an eye to the future.

Read More

“A compromise proposal for nuclear talks with Iran,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Julian Borger, The Guardian, June 9, 2014.

Articles, Publications

Four scenarios to strike a final nuclear deal with Iran

Posted on

The world powers are seeking a consensus that allows Iran to retain only a small and indigenousuranium enrichment program.Therefore they want to impose significant physical limits on the heavy water facilities, the number and type of centrifuges, the level of enrichment, the amount of stockpiled enriched uranium and the number of Tehran’s nuclear enrichment facilities — as well as install enhanced monitoring and verification measures.

However, these are demands that go beyond existing international nonproliferation commitments, and Iran is unlikely to accept.

The world powers’ limiting strategy poses a risk of pushing Iran to abandon its agreement with the P5+1, expel the IAEA inspectors, disable the IAEA’s monitoring equipment and ultimately build bombs. The bottom line is, the possibility of military confrontation with Iran is real if negotiators cannot agree on a final deal. Such confrontation could unleash terrible regional and international consequences. The world powers and Iran consider the following four scenarios in order to secure a final deal.

First, making Iran’s fatwa, or edict, operational. Iran is committed to a religious decree issued by the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei that bans the production, stockpiling and use of all weapons of mass destruction. Respecting its rights to peaceful nuclear technology means that Iran would have no reason to leave the NPT. This eliminates fears of an abrupt shutdown of monitoring the country’s nuclear program, because Iran would not withdraw from the NPT. In such eventuality, Iran and the world powers would forgo the limiting issues and discuss only transparency measures in the final deal.

Second, cooperating on a broad range of issues, including Iran’s enormous energy demands and potential. Such engagement and cooperation would remove all anxieties, not least Iran’s security concerns and the world powers’ fear that the Iranian nuclear program will be diverted toward weaponization.

Third, setting a realistic scope on limits to Iran’s nuclear program. Instead of making impossible demands, such as the closure of Iran’s enrichment site in Fordow or heavy water facilities in Arak, Iran and the P5+1 should agree on realistic limits guaranteeing nonproliferation for a specific confidence-building period. This would enable the IAEA enough time to address all technical ambiguities on the Iranian nuclear program.

Finally, considering a comprehensive vision for a nuclear-free Persian Gulf and Middle East. To actualize such a broad agenda, the world powers should first seek an agreement with Iran acceptable to other regional countries and then use the final deal with Iran as a model for the entire region.

Toward that end, the International Panel for Fissile Material, a team of independent nuclear experts from 15 countries, has proposed sensible measures: a ban on the separation or use of plutonium and uranium-233, restrictions on the use of high enriched uranium as a reactor fuel, limitations on uranium enrichment to less than 6 percent and agreement to a just-in-time system of uranium production rather than stockpiling enriched uranium. Both sides should agree to Iran’s adopting these courses of action.

Read More

“Four scenarios to strike a final nuclear deal with Iran,” Hossein Mousavian, Al Jazeera America, March 15, 2014.

 

Articles, Publications

A nuclear deal requires compromise from Iran and the west

Posted on

At a meeting in Vienna on Tuesday, negotiators from Iran and six world powers will begin hammering out a long-term agreement that would resolve questions related to Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for respecting Iran’s right to use peaceful nuclear technology and a gradual lifting of sanctions.

American insistence on “zero enrichment in Iran” is one reason for the failure of past talks. Last November’s deal was only possible because the US was prepared to be more realistic. A comprehensive agreement must offer something for both sides. Measures that go beyond the NPT may be required for a time to build confidence. But Iran cannot be expected to agree to them forever.

Any deal will have to involve compromise on four main issues.

Read More

“A nuclear deal requires compromise from Iran and the west,” Hossein Mousavian, Financial Times, February 16, 2014.

Interviews

Negotiating Team Did Not Cross Red Lines

Posted on

Excerpts of an exclusive interview with Hossein Mousavian, a former senior member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team.

More than ten years have passed since the beginning of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West.  This dossier, which had once become the most controversial file in the IAEA because of certain technical and legal questions, was gradually transformed into a political affair following its referral from the IAEA Board of Governors to the UN Security Council and this prepared the ground for the presence of new players. On November 24th 2013, a document was finally signed between Iran and the P5+1 as a Joint Plan of Action, giving the two sides six months to maneuver in the first step. During this decade of negotiations, the Iranian nuclear dossier has experienced the presence of numerous experts and diplomats with various political views. Iranian Diplomacy recently spoke with Hossein Mousavian, a former senior member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, about the recent Geneva agreement and the future of the nuclear talks and Iran’s relations with the West, the US, and with countries of the Persian Gulf region. Mr. Mousavian, who is  Princeton University, was Iran’s Ambassador to Germany from 1990-1997 and headed the Foreign Relations Committee of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran during the eight years of Mohammad Khatami’s presidency.

What is your assessment of the signing of the Joint Plan of Action between Iran and the P5+1 after many years of ups and downs in negotiations?

In a realistic view of this agreement, I must say that this agreement is neither desirable and ideal for the Iranian negotiating team nor desirable and ideal for the P5+1 negotiators. Neither of the parties has reached its maximum demands by signing this agreement. But considering the conditions or the situation of the nuclear dossier, I believe that neither the Iranian side nor the other party was able to achieve more than they did. The most important challenge and difference of opinion which exists in this agreement is, in fact, the response to the question of whether Iran’s enrichment program has been recognized or not? John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, stated in an interview that we have not recognized this right but the Iranian party reiterates that this right has been recognized. The critics of this agreement in Iran and the US maneuver over this issue. I believe that in order to understand the issue of uranium enrichment in Iran, we must study 40 years of US policy with regard to enrichment.  Following the adoption of the NPT in the late 1960s and its implementation in the early 1970s, the US has never, up until now, officially recognized enrichment in any country.

The second issue is that the US believes that if Iran’s enrichment is recognized, then there will be an international competition over this issue at the global level which would spread the threat of proliferation of nuclear weapons. Therefore, the US has pursued a dual policy, meaning that it has explicitly and practically accepted enrichment in countries which it trusts like Germany and Japan. Unfortunately this issue has not been well-comprehended inside the country. The fact is that the non-recognition of the right to enrichment by the US is not only implemented for Iran but that it is rather a general and 40-year long policy of the US administration.

Read Full Interview

“Negotiating Team Did Not Cross Red Lines,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Sara Massoumi, Iranian Diplomacy, January 30, 2014.

Essays, Publications

Solving the Nuclear Conflict with Iran

Posted on

Key Points:

  • The breakthrough in the negotiations with regard to the Iranian nuclear program was reached because the parameters of the negotiations have changed. This enabled rapprochement between Iran and the United States. The willingness of the P5+1 to accept limited enrichment and provide sanctions relief was key to securing Iranian consent.
  • A sustainable solution to the nuclear conflict with Iran can be agreed upon only on the basis of the NPT and necessitates an end to the discrimination of Iran compared to other member states. Measures that go beyond the provisions of the NPT can be complied with for a specified period of time as a confidence building measure.
  • A final deal can be reached if US-Iran relations are further improved to guarantee domestic US support for an agreement.

Read Policy Brief

“Solving the Nuclear Conflict with Iran,” Hossein Mousavian, Korber Policy Brief, No.2. Published by Korber Foundation, December 2013. 

Articles, Publications

Rouhani’s Nuclear Options

Posted on
[Author’s note: The views in this paper were presented prior to the Iranian presidential election at the NPT Prepcom on April 25 and publicly at Global Zero event at University of California-Irvine on May 23, 2013 respectively. This paper does not reflect in anyway the official position of the Iranian government.]

The Iranian nuclear dilemma is centered on the legitimate rights of Iran to enrichment under the NPT, and is not about building a nuclear bomb. Iran has signed onto every Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) convention, such as the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1997, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1996, and the NPT in 1970. Such conventions entail rights and obligations for all signatories. The West, however, has chosen, in contravention of international law, to carry out a coercive policy whereby Iran is pressed on obligations while its rights are denied.

Read More

“Rouhani’s Nuclear Options,” Hossein Mousavian, Asharq Al-Awsat, July 10, 2013.