Is This the Outline of the Iranian Nuclear Deal?

The outlines of a possible nuclear deal with Iran are now clear. What isn’t clear is whether Iran will actually agree to the terms of them by the six major powers – the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany and France.

When the talks open in Vienna tomorrow both sides will be “laying out their positions and trying to better understand where each of us are on the various issues,” a senior US administration official said in background comments ahead of the talks. “This process has been helpful in setting the table … to use the March and April rounds to go over every single issue that we believed had to be addressed in a comprehensive agreement and make sure we understood each other on those issues.” The goal is to begin “drafting in May,” the official said. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif gave much the same timetable when he arrived in Vienna for the talks, according to reports.

The six-month agreement on which the clock started ticking January 20 and for which talks on a comprehensive agreement began in February calls for a deal to be struck by July, although this could be extended for another six months if more time is needed.

Here’s the outline of a likely agreement, as well as the differences which divide Iran from the international community and which could torpedo an agreement. Iran is expected to be able to keep on enriching uranium but the question is how many centrifuges it will be able to keep turning and how much enriched uranium, which can be fuel for civilian reactors or bomb material, it will be able to stockpile. Right now Iran has some 19,000 centrifuges installed and about 8,000 kilograms of low-enriched uranium stockpiled, enough for several bombs. Experts believe Iran would have to reduce the number of centrifuges to 4,000 and the stockpile to almost nil — since it does not have a power reactor it needs to fuel at this point — in order to reduce the ability to “break-out”, that is rush to making enough fissile material for a bomb. Iran however has spoken of not dismantling its program and merely allowing for tighter monitoring.

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