On July 14, 2015, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – United Kingdom, China, France, Russia, United States – and Germany (“P5 + 1”) finally reached an agreement with the Iran to oversee Tehran’s nuclear program. This joint comprehensive plan of action, which provided for a partial lifting of international sanctions against the Islamic Republic in exchange for measures intended to ensure that the country does not acquire atomic weapons, was then synonymous with hope after twelve years of tensions and bitter negotiations.
But, five years after its entry into force on January 16, 2016, its future now seems uncertain. Iran announced, on January 4, the resumption of its 20% uranium enrichment process. A decision that is part of a series of deviations from its commitments, initiated in May 2019, a year after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the agreement.
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What are the main points of the 2015 agreement?
Enrichment, inspections, sanctions … the text, concluded on July 14, 2015 in Vienna, provides for a set of restrictions and controls, piloted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), over a period included, depending on the measures, between five and twenty-five years old.
The main objective of the “P5 + 1” is to put in place severe restrictions to ensure that the breakout time, the time required to produce enough enriched uranium to manufacture an atomic weapon, ie at least one year, and for a period of ten years. This measure is intended to allow the West to react, should Iran decide to embark on a bomb race.
In this context, the number of centrifuges enriching uranium, which must be increased to 90% for military use, is capped. During ten years, their number increases from 19,000 to 5,060, and only the oldest models (IR-1) can be used. Iran’s stocks of enriched uranium are strictly limited. For fifteen years, the country will not be able to keep on its territory more than 300 kg of uranium enriched to less than 3.67% in the form of UF6 (the gaseous form of uranium before enrichment).
The Fordo underground site, located 180 kilometers south of the capital, Tehran, has been transformed into a nuclear physics and technology center. Any activity relating to enrichment is prohibited. Iran finally agrees to modify its heavy water reactor in Arak, so as to make it impossible to produce plutonium for military use. Under the agreement, the IAEA is responsible for regularly monitoring nuclear sites, with considerably increased prerogatives.
The withdrawal of the United States from the agreement, the tipping point
The arrival of Donald Trump at the White House marks a turning point in this file. Among the Republican campaign promises is the withdrawal of the United States from the Vienna Accord. On May 8, 2018, he made it happen.
On August 7, a first set of sanctions targeting imports of raw materials, as well as Iranian purchases of automobiles and commercial aviation, was reinstated. Then, on November 5, it was the oil and financial sectors’ turn to be targeted.
A year later, on May 8, 2019, in retaliation for these measures, which suffocate its economy and deprive its population of the expected benefits of the agreement, Iran begins to withdraw from its obligations. Tehran’s objective is then to force Europeans to help it bypass American sanctions, and in particular to export its oil.
Iran has thus started to exceed the authorized limit of 300 kg of low enriched uranium (UF6 equivalent) – the latest IAEA report, published in November, shows an accumulated stock twelve times higher than this ceiling. The country then relaunched enrichment activities at the Fordo plant. Then, at the start of 2020, it decided to increase the number of its centrifuges: from 5,060 in 2015, they are now around 6,400 today. Tehran has also put into service advanced technology machines banned by the agreement, at its important site in Natanz, in the center of the country.
A year later, the Islamic Republic announced that it had resumed its enrichment activities at 20%, the rate applied before the signing of the agreement. But the Iranian authorities say they are ready to return to the strict application of the joint comprehensive plan of action in the event of the lifting of US sanctions.
20% enrichment, a symbolic threshold
The announcement of the resumption of 20% uranium enrichment marks Iran’s most serious withdrawal from the Vienna Accord since it was signed. In its natural state, the uranium that is extracted is composed of more than 99%, by mass, of uranium 238 (238U) and 0.7% uranium 235 (235U). Only the latter allows a nuclear fission reaction. To be used as fuel in a nuclear power plant and to produce energy, uranium must therefore be enriched.
The level required to make a bomb is 90%, far from the 20% announced by the Islamic Republic. But reaching the bar of the first twenty points of enriched uranium is the most tedious, as explained François Nicoullaud, former French ambassador in Tehran and specialist in Iranian issues: “Enriching uranium from 20% to 90% is much easier and faster than enriching it from 3% to 20%. The signal is therefore symbolic, even if the symbol is strong. “
To get closer to the production of the bomb, “It would have to produce around 250 kg of 20% uranium, then enrich it further up to 90%, to have enough to make a first bomb”, continues the expert. For now, Iran is still letting IAEA inspectors do their job to ensure the peaceful nature of its nuclear program, as the government has not ordered such checks to stop, despite a request from the country’s parliamentarians to this effect.
A strategy to put pressure on the Biden administration
Asked by Agence France-Presse (AFP), Ellie Geranmayeh, from the research center of the European Council for International Relations, tempers: “It is worrying, but Iran could have taken much more provocative measures. ” In his eyes, it is above all a ” reply “ at “The growing pressure from the Trump administration” over the country.
Relations between Washington and Tehran, already very tense since the Islamic revolution of 1979, worsened after the Republican came to the White House. His successor, Joe Biden, who will be invested on January 20, has expressed his desire to resume diplomacy with the Islamic Republic. “The calculation of the Supreme Leader [Ali Khamenei] is to say that it would be beneficial for Iran to enter negotiations with the Biden administration from a position of strength ”, explains to World Ali Vaez, Iran program director at the International Crisis Group.
If the Iranian president, the moderate reformer Hassan Rohani – who was also one of the architects of the Vienna agreement – has, for his part, multiplied the signs of openness vis-à-vis the next administration, however, it demands the unconditional lifting of American sanctions.
“It’s about raising the stakes, thus analyzes Clément Therme, specialist in Iran at the International Research Center of Sciences-Po Paris, quoted by AFP. The Islamic Republic hopes that the Western nuclear obsession will promote a return to a negotiation strategy based on an exchange between [d’un côté] the lifting of sanctions and [de l’autre] restrictions on Iranian nuclear ambitions, evacuating other files. “
But Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly warned against hoping to open up with the West. He judges that “Enmities” the United States towards Iran will not cease with the departure of Donald Trump.
Behind international issues, internal tensions
Beyond the international standoff, the Iranian nuclear issue also testifies to the political tensions inside the Islamic Republic, where the government is forced to give pledges to supporters of a hard line against Washington. The latter are particularly brought up after the assassination by the United States, on January 3, of General Ghassem Soleimani, then the attack that recently targeted a nuclear physicist, an attack that Tehran attributed to Israel.
The decision to relaunch 20% enrichment was thus taken by Parliament, dominated by the conservatives since February 2020, despite government opposition. Faced with Mr. Rouhani’s refusal to promulgate the law implementing this process, the President of Parliament, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, therefore seized the text and published it in Official newspaper, as permitted by law.
For the most conservative, this measure makes it possible to demonstrate “That targeted assassinations (…) do not slow down the Iranian nuclear program, but on the contrary lead to [son] acceleration “, notes Clément Therme. Former ambassador François Nicoullaud believes that it is above all about“A matter of domestic policy”.
The signatory countries of the Vienna Agreement are aware that the latter is now on a razor’s edge. The European Union has promised to “Redouble efforts” to preserve the pact, despite the decision “Regrettable” Iranian authorities. But time is running out: the consequences of US sanctions are magnified by the Covid-19 pandemic – the country is hardest hit in the Middle East – and the presidential election in Iran is approaching – it is scheduled for June 18. Having already served two terms, Mr. Rohani is ineligible for his succession.
