The numbers in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal were specific. Uranium enrichment capped at 3.67 per cent. A stockpile no larger than 300 kilograms. Intrusive inspections by the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, which Iran agreed to accept. In return, Tehran got broad relief from UN, US and EU sanctions and the right to pursue civilian nuclear energy.
Every one of those commitments has since been tested, broken or overtaken by events. Here is the record, in order.
What the deal asked of Iran
The accord, formally Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, was reached in July 2015 between Iran and the P5+1, meaning the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany, with the European Union also at the table. It took effect in January 2016. The goal, as the Council on Foreign Relations describes it, was to stretch the time Iran would need to build a bomb to at least a year; without a deal, American intelligence officials figured Tehran could produce weapon material within months.
The deal limited the number and type of centrifuges, the enrichment level and the stockpile. It kept Fordow, Natanz and Arak to civilian work. Many limits carried expiry dates: centrifuge restrictions after ten years, limits on low-enriched uranium after fifteen. Early in 2016 the IAEA confirmed Iran had kept its first pledges, and sanctions were lifted or suspended. About $100 billion in frozen Iranian assets were released.
2018 and after
President Donald Trump withdrew the United States in 2018 and reinstated banking and oil sanctions. He argued the deal ignored ballistic missiles and regional proxies and that its sunset provisions would let Iran pursue weapons later. France, Germany and the United Kingdom set up a barter channel, INSTEX, to keep trade alive. It was used once before being dissolved in 2023.
Iran started exceeding its stockpile limit in 2019 and enriching to higher concentrations. In January 2020, after the US killed General Qasem Soleimani, it announced it would no longer limit enrichment. That October it began building a centrifuge production site at Natanz to replace one wrecked months earlier, which Tehran blamed on Israel. In November, after the killing of a prominent nuclear scientist, parliament passed a law that sharply raised enrichment at Fordow.
Access shrank too. At Fordow, inspectors detected particles enriched to 83.7 percent, and Iran pledged in March 2023 to cooperate more with the agency, which had seen its ability to inspect steadily curtailed.
Snapback
The last lever in the deal was the snapback, which allows any original signatory to reimpose UN sanctions over significant breach. Britain, France and Germany, the E3, triggered it at the Security Council, starting a 30-day countdown. News18 noted the process was built to be veto-proof, because a resolution to continue sanctions relief would need nine votes and no veto from a permanent member.
Europe demanded a full return of IAEA inspectors and an accounting of Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium. Iran had suspended cooperation with the agency once Israeli and American bombs had hit its nuclear sites. Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref questioned whether the three countries had the legal authority to act. A draft law to quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty was before the Iranian parliament.
Sources
- What Is the Iran Nuclear Deal? (Council on Foreign Relations backgrounder)
- Snapback sanctions expose Iran's diplomatic dilemma (DW)
- Europe Triggers Snapback Sanctions On Iran (News18)
