Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant
Iran's Bushehr nuclear plantReuters

The deal between world powers and Iran has delayed Tehran's acquisition of nuclear weapons by 10 to 15 years, an expert told AFP on Tuesday.

"2015 was by and large a decent year for news on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," John Chipman, the director-general and chief executive of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), told the news agency.

"Principally because, of course, we did see in the last year the conclusion of the P5 plus one agreement on the Iranian nuclear file," he added.

Chipman was speaking to AFP after presenting the IISS's annual assessment of the global balance of military power.

"There are lots of skeptics as to how good an arrangement that is but there is some consensus that at least that it has delayed for some 10 years, and possibly 15 years, the acquisition by Iran of a nuclear weapon," he claimed, adding, "That's good proliferation news for the year 2015-2016."

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently confirmed Iran met its initial obligations under the terms of the nuclear deal reached with world powers last July, thus enabling the implementation of the agreement and lifting of the sanctions on Iran.

The removal of the sanctions came despite  a December 2 report from the IAEA which concluded that Iran made a "coordinated" effort to develop nuclear weapons in the past, although the efforts apparently ended at an early stage.

The UN watchdog had also previously released a report which determined that Iran had violated the terms of its nuclear deal with the West by increasing its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 460.2 kilograms.