The Trump administration faces a self-imposed Tuesday deadline to decide whether to extend waivers allowing other world powers to work with Iran on civilian nuclear projects without facing U.S. sanctions.Speaking at an Oct. 16 Senate hearing, U.S. Special Envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, said the Iran nuclear waivers renewed by the State Department for 90 days on July 30 expire on Oct. 29. He said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would have to make a decision by then on canceling the five waivers or renewing any of them for an additional period.FILE – Brian Hook, U.S. Special Representative for Iran, attends a news conference in London, June 28, 2019.The five waivers enable European powers, Russia and China to deploy personnel to four Iranian nuclear sites to work with their Iranian counterparts in ensuring that the sites do not engage in activities that could be diverted to making nuclear weapons. Washington and its allies long have accused Iran of seeking a nuclear weapons capability, while Tehran has said its nuclear program is civilian and peaceful.Iran agreed to cooperate with international experts to bar potential weapons-related activities at the four nuclear sites in return for international sanctions relief as part of a 2015 deal with world powers.U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from that deal last year and unilaterally reimposed U.S. sanctions on Iran. He said the 2015 deal was not tough enough on Iran and launched a “maximum pressure” campaign to force Tehran to give up perceived nuclear weapons ambitions and other malign activities.But, Trump repeatedly has extended the waivers for the civilian projects at the four Iranian nuclear sites, shielding other world powers from U.S. sanctions as they implement the civilian cooperation aspects of the 2015 deal, which those powers want to maintain. The FILE – Iran’s heavy water nuclear facilities are seen near the central city of Arak, 150 miles (250 kilometers) southwest of Tehran, Jan. 15, 2011.A day later, the FILE – A handout picture released by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s official website shows him at right, listening to an expert during a tour of the Tehran Research Reactor, Feb. 15, 2012.Bloomberg said Republican supporters of the bill believe Iran cannot be trusted to keep its nuclear activities peaceful because it ran a covert nuclear weapons program under cover of civilian projects in the early 2000s. It said they also believe that ending the waivers would make it harder for a Democratic president to revive the 2015 nuclear deal should Trump not be re-elected next year.The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research group that also backs a tough U.S. stance against Iran, wrote in a Monday op-ed that the Trump administration should at least terminate the Fordow waiver and “conditionally suspend” the Arak waiver. It noted that Iran has delayed fulfilling its commitments to make the Arak site less of a proliferation risk and to convert the Fordow facility into a “nuclear, physics and technology center” for international scientific cooperation.Speaking to VOA Persian, FDD op-ed co-author and nonproliferation analyst Andrea Stricker said the status quo is not working. “We think (our proposal) would be the best tool for Europe and the U.N. nuclear agency to pressure Iran to actually take the actions that it is supposed to under the nuclear deal,” she said.Asked how Iran could be prevented from resuming weapons-related work at any site for which a U.S. waiver is revoked, Stricker called for threatening more U.S. sanctions in response to such Iranian action.This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.
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