RPT: ANALYSIS - Iran Keeps Nuclear Deal In Force Despite Rolling Back Key Commitments

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th January, 2020) Iran has ended its commitment to enrichment limitations imposed under the 2015 nuclear deal � without entirely scrapping the pact � in an effort to keep Europeans on its side, analysts argued.

Iran said Sunday it would no longer abide by the key limits of the pact that include its capacity to enrich and store uranium in the country, a core commitment that has been monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The announcement came two days after a deadly US drone strike in Iraq killed Iran's elite Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in an operation ordered by President Donald Trump, who also pulled the country from the nuclear deal in 2018.

While an unsettling development, Iran rolling back its enrichment commitments is a predictable step that does not bring it closer to building an A-bomb or ending IAEA monitoring, Marc Finaud, head of Arms Proliferation at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, said.

"At this stage, despite rising tensions with the United States, Iran remains committed to its non-nuclear weapon state status. Any dramatic shift away from this strategy could only be the result of a major American military offensive," he told Sputnik.

Nikolai Sokov, from the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Nonproliferation, an Austria-based nonprofit, pointed out that such key installations as the Arak heavy water nuclear reactor were not mentioned in the Iranian announcement. Arak would be essential to producing weapon-grade uranium.

"This is not the end of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action]. Some elements of the deal... were not mentioned at all, so they presumably remain in force. Iran has removed limits on enrichment, but the IAEA will continue to operate under the provisions," Sokov said.

M. V. Ramana, Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security with the University of British Columbia's Liu Institute for Global Issues, predicted that Iran was far from making a nuclear weapon and would be slowly stockpiling low-enriched uranium.

Should it speed up enrichment to move to the pre-2015 levels and above, the United States or Israel might well attack, warned Miles Pomper, a DC-based analyst with the Middlebury Institute's James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

"I would expect that Iran will be very careful about full withdrawal from the JCPOA � particularly its provisions on inspections and transparency, because this could unite the other members of the P5+1, including Russia, with the United States in opposition to it," he said.

Thus far, Iran has indicated that it was open to talks and that all steps taken in breach of the landmark treaty were reversible, said John Carlson, ex-chief of the Australian government's Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office and a counselor at the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Carlson emphasized that Iran's decision to disavow its key commitments was in line with its "calibrated approach" to pressuring the US into returning to the negotiating table and lifting crippling economic sanctions on Tehran that snapped back after Washington quit the pact.

"While Iran's anger and frustration at US behavior are understandable, it is essential for Iran to look at the JCPOA as involving much broader issues than the immediate concerns over US sanctions. The JCPOA is an important step towards avoiding a nuclear arms race in the middle East," he underscored.

There was no single opinion on how Russia, China, France, Germany and the United Kingdom should react. Pomper suggested that the remaining signatories should stand up to what he sees as Iran's attempts to drive a wedge between them and the US, while Finauld said that the Europeans should now redouble efforts to protect Tehran from US sanctions through a special investment mechanism.