US State Dept: Additional US sanctions to be imposed on Iran for heavy water, uranium enrichment

RT
Fri, 03 May 2019 20:38 UTC

© IRNA/Mohammad Babaie/Reuters

Nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran

The Trump administration will sanction any assistance to expand Iran's nuclear power plant at Bushehr and ban exports of heavy water and any further uranium enrichment, the State Department has announced.

Restrictions on the Bushehr plan may impact Russia, which has been working with Iran to expand and modernize the facility.

The sanctions will apply starting Saturday, May 4, according to a statement by State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus. "Iran must stop all proliferation-sensitive activities, including uranium enrichment," Ortagus said, adding the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded Iran "never pursue plutonium reprocessing."

The measures aim to deny Iran "any pathway to a nuclear weapon," according to Pompeo.

Provisions for exporting excess heavy water, limited uranium enrichment and expanding the civilian power plant in Bushehr were included in the 2015 nuclear deal - also known as the JCPOA - signed by Iran, the US, China and four European nuclear states. However, the US unilaterally pulled out of the JCPOA, in May 2018, and reintroduced nuclear sanctions against Tehran in November.

Pompeo's announcement makes it clear that the US still expects Iran to abide by the deal, even though the US does not.

Sanction waivers on shipping the surplus heavy water to Oman and exporting enriched uranium over the 300-kilogram limit were key waivers included in the JCPOA. With them revoked, Iran will have trouble disposing of enriched uranium.

"Revoking these waivers, you're basically almost preventing the other JCPOA parties from providing the peaceful nuclear technical assistance that is the basis of Iran's nuclear commitments," Kenneth Katzman, an Iran expert at the Congressional Research Service, told Bloomberg on Friday.

Five other JCPOA sanction waivers, which were expiring Saturday, were renewed for 45 to 90 days, instead of the customary 180. They apply to Iran's nuclear facilities in Arak, Fordow and Tehran.

The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions on Iran's oil industry, with the intent to reduce exports to zero, and declared the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a "terrorist organization," ratcheting up tensions with Tehran forty years after the Islamic revolution overthrew the US-backed monarchy.

Comment: More on waiver renewal reductions from Sputnik:

Washington has also revoked two waivers allowing Iran to send its excess heavy water to Oman and to export excess enriched uranium, a practice it used to remain within the strict limits of the JCPOA. In turn, Tehran received from its trade partners "yellowcake" uranium, a type of the radioactive element with a much lower concentration than enriched fuel.

"We are tightening restrictions on Iran's nuclear program as part of our pressure campaign," US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook told Bloomberg.

Two of the three facilities given waivers have relationships with foreign countries; the heavy water reactor at Arak is being redesigned with Chinese help, according to the JCPOA; the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant was built with help from the Soviet Union, and today Russia supplies enriched uranium for the plant and takes away its spent fuel rods. The third site, Fordow, is a uranium enrichment facility. Its inclusion in the waivers has drawn heavy criticism because of the potential for the facility to be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, which is derived from uranium.

While US President Donald Trump and hawkish associates such as National Security Adviser John Bolton have pressed for a total cessation of all Iranian nuclear fuel refinement, the US State Department is forced to navigate a difficult and narrow path between, on the one hand, constraining Iranian production so as to avoid the perceived danger of an Iranian nuclear program, and on the other, pushing Tehran into such a desperate situation that it departs from all cooperation with the JCPOA powers and resumes its pre-2015 activities - something it's threatened to do more than once in the last year.

"Our leadership is not comfortable with any mechanism that allows uranium enrichment," Ford said. "We don't want to give Iran a supposed excuse to continue to enrich."