The Donald Trump administration is trotting out a new line of attack against Iran over its nuclear program as it continues to expand its so-called maximum pressure campaign.
A synopsis of a pending annual State Department report on international nuclear compliance released this week accuses Iran of potentially violating the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The allegations lay the groundwork for the administration to argue that Iran is in violation of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, despite the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) assertions to the contrary.
The new allegations are based largely on documents that Israeli intelligence says it seized from an Iranian nuclear archive last year. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has seized on that evidence to allege that Iran was removing nuclear material and equipment from an undeclared site, in violation of the NPT. Scrutinizing Iran’s compliance with nonproliferation pacts beyond the confines of the nuclear deal has been a priority for both hawkish Republicans in Congress and the State Department’s new head of arms control.
The fact that Iran has retained “archives related to its past covert nuclear weapons program” while many of its scientists and technicians continue to collaborate under the leadership of the program’s former chief raises “serious questions regarding whether Iran intended to preserve the option to resume elements of a nuclear weapons program in the future,” according to the State Department report. It goes on to state that this “could potentially constitute a violation” of the NPT’s ban on nuclear weapons development as well as a violation of the treaty’s safeguard provisions overseen by the IAEA.
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