Four Weeks of a Weak Deal: Day Seven

Fordow Enrichment Facility

When 83 Senators wrote to President Obama last year outlining goals for the President to pursue in nuclear talks with Iran, they made it clear they felt Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility at Fordow had to go.

“We believe Iran has no reason to have an enrichment facility like Fordow, that the regime must give up its heavy water reactor at Arak, and that it must fully explain the questionable activities in which it engaged at Parchin and other facilities.”
Eighty-three U.S. Senators, Letter to President Obama, March 18, 2014

But instead of shuttering Fordow, the Iranian regime will keep the facility — and many of the centrifuges that are there.

JCPOA, Section A, Paragraph 6

6. Iran will convert the Fordow facility into a nuclear, physics and technological centre. International collaboration including in the form of scientific joint partnerships will be established in agreed areas of research. 1044 IR-1 centrifuges in six cascades will remain in one wing at Fordow. Two of these cascades will spin without uranium and will be transitioned, including through appropriate infrastructure modification, for stable isotope production. The other four cascades with all associated infrastructure will remain idle. All other centrifuges and enrichment-related infrastructure will be removed and stored under IAEA continuous monitoring as specified in Annex 1.

What this means: Iran will retain critical nuclear infrastructure that can come back online after just 15 years.

This post is part of the series “Four Weeks of a Weak Deal,” outlining portions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that fall short of expectations.