WASHINGTON – The White House insisted on Friday that Iran would see no financial benefits from signing a peace deal with the US and would have to earn any sanctions relief.
It’s the latest detail emerging in the deal between the US and Iran that President Trump says could be signed within days.
The White House emphasized the five points on Friday that must be enacted: Iran will destroy its highly enriched uranium; it will dismantle its nuclear program; economic relief will come with those first two steps; the Strait of Hormuz will stay open; and Iran must stop funding terrorist groups like Hezbollah.
The Trump administration is confident the economic benefits they’re offering Iran will outweigh the regime’s desire for a nuclear weapon, giving Trump a major victory.
“We have structured this in a way where it’s not built around trust, it’s built around physical milestones, it’s built around action, and it’s built around verification,” a senior administration official told reporters Friday.
Should all of the White House’s five-point demands come to pass, Tehran can expect, in return, sanctions relief that will help its decimated economy.
“I think they are willing to give up their nuclear ambitions in exchange for some real economic benefit,” the official said, adding if the US sees Iran decommission its nuclear sites and end its enrichment program “then we’re going to be very good to the people of Iran.”
The official was around 80% confident that a deal would be reached in the next few days.
“We feel good about where we are, but we’re ultimately going to see whether the Iranians care more about their economic prosperity than they do their nuclear weapons program,” the person said.
Once this memorandum of understanding is passed, it will kick into effect a 60-day negotiation period where Iran would open the Strait of Hormuz and the final details about the dismantling of the nuclear program – and the benefits Iran gets in return – will be hammered out.
At stake for Tehran is $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenues being held by Qatar. Currently the funds are earmarked for U.S.-approved humanitarian needs, but Tehran wants to have broader, unrestricted access to the funds, particularly to help the country recover from the bombing campaign.
Trump has been clear from the start that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon and its uranium enrichment program – down to its “nuclear dust” – must be disposed of.
But a civilian nuclear power plant is another matter.
The White House is “not concerned” about Iran having such a facility — so long as it can’t be used to make a nuclear weapon, a senior White House official told reporters on Friday.
The official pointed to the UAE, which generates electricity through nuclear power, but “they don’t have the kind of infrastructure that would allow them to build a nuclear bomb.”
“We’re not bothered at all by the idea of civilian power plants in Iran,” the official said. “What we’re bothered by is the type of infrastructure that would allow them to jump from civilian power generation to nuclear weapons development, and that’s what they’ve had for a very long time.”
That infrastructure includes powerful equipment that spins up and enriches uranium to levels required for a nuclear weapon.
“That’s, of course, what they had under the JCPOA,” the person said, referring to the 2015 Obama Iran deal that allowed Iran to continue uranium enrichment for a civil program. “That’s what allowed them to build a stockpile of enriched material well beyond what would be useful for a nuclear energy program.”
Still, the official did not detail whether Iran would be banned from enriching any uranium, as details were sparse on what the ideal civilian program would look like.
“We feel quite confident that if they meet their obligations under this agreement, they’re not going to have that infrastructure to build a nuclear weapon, so you know, we’ll see,” the official said.
To make sure it stays that way, the official emphasized that there will be unspecified verification measures and inspections.
Iran has agreed “in principle” to allow international IAEA inspectors and the US to destroy and remove its nuclear material — stored in three different locations, a senior administration official said.
Nuclear experts warn that any ability to enrich uranium comes with dangers.
“Any enrichment and enriched uranium stockpiles in Iran give them the option to move to weapons-grade enrichment at a time of the regime’s choosing,” said Andrea Stricker, deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ nonproliferation program.
“The administration must insist Iran act like more than 20 other countries that import fuel rods to operate nuclear power reactors and don’t enrich their own uranium, thereby blocking a future Iranian nuclear bomb option.”
But optimism about the deal was spreading among the Trump team.
“It accomplishes the core objectives that the President of the United States set out for this mission and gets us in a very, very good place at the end of it,” the official said.
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