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More Distortions on Iran from the Times

by Derek Davison
On Tuesday, The New York Times published what appeared at first to be a troubling update on the state of Iran’s nuclear program. In a piece headlined “Iran’s Nuclear Stockpile Grows, Complicating Negotiations,” the paper’s chief Washington correspondent David E. Sanger and science reporter William J. Broad discuss a May 29 report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran’s compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
The IAEA found no evidence that Iran has made any illicit progress toward building a nuclear weapon, Sanger and Broad write. But the IAEA report, they add, did suggest that Iran has not adhered to its obligations with respect to the size and nature of its stockpile of low enriched (less than 5% enrichment) uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6), the form in which the uranium can be fed into centrifuges and further enriched, theoretically to weapons-grade (over 90% enrichment). This stockpile is to be capped at 7650 kilograms under the terms of the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), which went into effect in January 2014 and has governed the negotiations since then. Iran is required to convert any UF6 that is “newly enriched” while the JPOA is active to uranium oxide powder (UO2), which cannot be fed into centrifuges.
However, according to the IAEA report, Iran’s UF6 stockpile has increased to its current amount of 8714.7 kilos, a development that, according to Sanger and Broad, is “undercutting the Obama administration’s contention that the Iranian program had been ‘frozen’” since the implementation of the JPOA. They argue that the IAEA report “poses a major diplomatic and political challenge for President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry” as they try to secure a final agreement. It calls into question whether Iran will or even can meet its obligations under the JPOA and under a future comprehensive plan, where it will likely have to limit its enriched uranium stocks to somewhere in the 300 kilogram range.
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