A senior White House official on Monday admitted that the January 20 implementation of the interim Iran nuclear deal will allow the Islamic regime to continue advanced research and development on its nuclear program.
Asked by a reporter in a conference call press briefing if the deal stops "Iran from designing new types of centrifuges," the official admitted the deal does not stop such development, reports the Washington Free Beacon.
The official stuttered “well, designing is not, all I would say is the, what you would do with a piece of paper and designing, that’s not the sort of thing that the Joint Plan of Action—the Joint Plan of Action talks about research and development, R&D (research and development), and it mainly talks about what was going—practices at the Natanz power facility, which is the facility that the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) has access to and where we have reporting on."
In an attempt to clarify, the reporter Monday asked “so what’s the practical effect of this R&D clarification that you labored over so hard? What does it preclude them from doing?”
“It—I mean, their commitment is to continue their current enrichment R&D practices, and those are the practices that are laid out in the November Director General’s report,” admitted another official present. “This—that’s been documented, and that’s what they were—that’s what they will continue to do.”
Last Wednesday it was reported that the talks hit snags on this very issue of centrifuge development. The next day, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Head Akbar Salehi announced that "a new generation of centrifuges is being built, but they should undergo all tests before mass production."
Analyst Mark Langfan predicted on Monday that the interim deal will enable Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon sooner than it would have otherwise, in an op-ed detailing the deal.
Similarly, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported that the increased access it will have to Iranian nuclear facilities under the interim deal is not enough to verify whether the Islamic regime is developing a nuclear weapon, reports Zee News.
"This is just an appetizer, I guess ... a starter," said former chief UN nuclear inspector Herman Nackaerts.
Meanwhile Iran is set to receive $4.2 billion in previously blocked overseas funds in several installments in the framework of the soon to be implemented deal, with the first chunk coming February 1. US President Barack Obama called the move "modest relief."
Obama added on Monday that the US shouldn't adopt new sanctions, in response to a new sanctions bill in the senate.