Biden administration restores Iran sanctions waiver

Feb. 5 (UPI) — The Biden administration has restored an Iran sanctions waiver amid negotiations to return to the 2015 nuclear deal.

The State Department notified congressional lawmakers of the waiver on Iran’s civil nuclear program Friday, NBC News and CNN reported.

The waiver will allow countries to cooperate on certain non-proliferation activities to return to the international nuclear deal at a time when Iran is weeks away from being able to produce enough weapons-grade material for a nuclear bomb, according to NBC News.

Iran has denied it has any plans to build nuclear weapons.

The Trump administration withdrew from the Obama-era accord known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action days before a deadline to recertify the pact in 2018, calling it “defective at its core,” and reimposed sanctions.

Since the withdrawal, Iran has added to its enriched uranium supply well, breached the original deal and denied the International Atomic Energy Agency access to its nuclear sites.

“This is not a signal that we are about to reach an understanding on a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA,” a senior State Department official told NBC News.

“Absent this sanctions wavier, detailed technical discussions with third parties regarding disposition of stockpiles and other activities of nonproliferation value cannot take place,” the official added.

It “is designed to facilitate discussions that would help to close a deal on a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA and lay the groundwork for Iran’s return to performance of its JCPOA commitments,” the State Department said in its notification to Congress.

“These sanctions waivers allow for international cooperation on activities that help reduce Iran’s nuclear potential and are a sign that a deal on full and mutual return to compliance may be within reach,” Daryl Kimball of the non-profit Arms Control Association told NBC News.

The waiver will also allow companies and countries to continue to cooperate with Iran on civil nuclear projects at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power station, Arak heavy water plant and the Tehran Research Reactor, CNN reported.

The Trump administration issued a waiver for work on the civil nuclear projects after withdrawing from the nuclear accord, saying it helped to “preserve oversight of Iran’s civil nuclear program,” and “reduce proliferation risks,” but in May 2020 the Trump administration ended the waiver.

Earlier this week, The Washington Post reported that European partners were in “the final stage” of negotiations over a U.S. return to the nuclear deal.

A senior State Department official told The Post at the time there were only “a handful” of weeks before Iran’s nuclear program would advance so far beyond the parameters of the original 2015 accord that a return to its terms would be impossible. (function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(d.getElementById(id))return;js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=’https://embed.ex.co/sdk.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}(document,’script’,’exco-sdk’));