US to waive sanctions on Iran civilian nuclear activities

The sanctions relief is intended to prepare the way for Iran to return to the 2015 nuclear deal.

The waivers are related to work aimed at turning Iran’s heavy water Arak reactor into a less-dangerous light water reactor. Picture: AFP

The Biden administration is waiving sanctions on some of Iran’s civilian nuclear activities as it seeks to close a deal with Tehran on returning to the 2015 pact.

The US will allow foreign companies and officials to work once again on certain non-­weapons Iranian nuclear facilities, reversing a Trump administration decision in 2020 to sanction that work, which froze the activity, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The US decision would free the way for that work to recommence as part of a restored nuclear deal being negotiated in Vienna in talks between Iran, the US and several world powers.

Republicans, who overwhelmingly opposed the original 2015 deal, have criticised President Joe Biden for seeking to rejoin it.

According to the documents, the waivers are related to work aimed at turning Iran’s heavy-water Arak reactor into a less dangerous light-water reactor and on the underground Fordow enrichment facility that the nuclear deal stipulates should be turned into a research centre.

As well, the sanctions waiver applies to the export of enriched uranium and heavy water , which was needed to keep Iran within its stockpile limits under the 2015 deal, intended to stop it from gaining the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon.

The waivers would also allow fuel to be sent to Iran’s Bushehr reactor and the Tehran Research Reactor, both of which are used for civilian purposes.

Even after the Trump administration exited the deal – known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – in May 2018, the US allowed China, Russia and Britain to work on the civilian projects until 2020.

The State Department said in a report to congress the waivers, approved on Thursday by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, would “help to close a deal on a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA and lay the groundwork for Iran’s return to performance of its JCPOA ­commitments”.

At a time when the Biden administration is telling Iran it has just weeks to make decisions needed to restore the 2015 deal, a US official involved in the talks said the decision should spur discussions Iran is having with Russia and China, which were helping it carry out the projects, on how to get the work going again if the deal were revived.

The conversion of Arak into a light-water plant was a key part of the 2015 deal. Iran was close to completing a heavy-water facility at Arak, which could have produced enough plutonium for two to three atomic weapons a year, US officials said at the time. The plutonium production of the light-water facility would be much smaller. China and Britain were working with Iran on the project.

Likewise, the conversion of Fordow into a research centre was intended to end the enrichment of nuclear fuel at the underground site, Iran’s most heavily protected facility. Russia was leading the work on this.

A State Department official said at the weekend the waivers would be useful in advancing nuclear non-proliferation, as well as in technical talks related to efforts in Vienna to get Iran to return to the deal. The waivers aren’t a quid pro quo arrangement with Iran and are also “not a concession to Iran” because they are linked to US non-proliferation goals independent of the outcome of the talks in Vienna. The move is “not a signal that we are about to reach an understanding” on a return to the nuclear deal, the official said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said late on Saturday that the steps by the US to lift sanctions were “good but not enough”.

The Biden administration has pursued indirect talks with Iran – filtered through other members of the 2015 deal – in hopes that Tehran would return to the pact. Senior US officials say the curbs on dangerous nuclear activities contained in the original deal are the best way to derail Iran from gaining the ability to make a nuclear weapon in the near future.

The Wall Street Journal