Uranium-enriching centrifuges at Natanz, Iran.
One of the key terms of the multilateral agreement with Iran mandates the dismantling of nearly 13,000 of the 19,000 centrifuges that concentrate uranium for power-plant fuel that could also be used to make nuclear weapons if Iran's leaders decided to do so. That
dismantling has now begun and could be completed before the end of the month.
Under the deal announced July 14, in exchange for the removal of U.N. and U.S. economic sanctions, Iran agreed to make its nuclear program more transparent, reduce the number of centrifuges it is spinning, get rid of 98 percent of its stockpile of enriched uranium, and fill with concrete the vessel for containing its research reactor at Arak (which would have been capable of producing plutonium that could be used for a nuclear bomb). In addition to cutting back on the number of centrifuges, Iran has promised to use only old-technology centrifuges instead of new devices that generate enriched uranium 20 times faster.
The centrifuges being dismantled are at two underground sites, Natanz and Fordow. The former will be allowed to continue spinning 5,060 old-tech centrifuges, with another 1,000 operating at Fordow. That site is buried under 260 feet of earth and concrete, protected from air attacks except by so-called bunker-busting bombs or nuclear warheads.
While the Iranian parliament—the Majlis—and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved the nuclear agreement last month, Iranian ultra-conservatives, like their U.S. counterparts, are still bellyaching about the deal:
A group of 20 hard-line lawmakers demanded that the government stop the decommissioning of the centrifuges because a special parliamentary committee to monitor the process sought by Ayatollah Khamenei has not yet been formed.
“Unfortunately, in the last two days, a number of contractors entered the Fordo site to remove the centrifuges and the infrastructure at this site, and they have said that it will take them two weeks to finish the work,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to President Hassan Rouhani, referring to one of the two enrichment plants.
Those same hardliners
have been engaged in months of insults against President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who negotiated the deal with the U.S., the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, and Germany.
Rouhani is eager to complete Iran's requirements under the nuclear agreement—and have at least some of the economic sanctions removed—before the February 26 parliamentary elections.