03 February 2015
Project Alpha in the Telegraph: 'US should stop Iran buying material for Arak nuclear plant'
Head of Project Alpha, Ian J. Stewart, has co-authored a piece in today’s Telegraph entitled, ‘US Should Stop Iran Buying Materiel for Arak Nuclear Plant.’
In it, Ian and Andrea Stricker, Senior Policy Analyst at the Institute for Science and International Security, discuss Iran’s continued procurement of essential materials for its heavy water reactor at Arak.
Details of this ongoing procurement were contained in leaked United Nations reporting seen by Foreign Policy and Reuters.
Despite the procurements detailed in these reports, the US State Department has pointed out there are no grounds to believe that Iran is not adhering to the Joint Plan of Action, signed by the P5+1 and Iran in Geneva in November last year. The JPOA places constraints on Iran’s nuclear programme, but it does not explicitly prohibit illicit procurement.
Ian and Andrea note, however, that the allegations in the UN report are still very serious: they amount to an explicit breach of UN sanctions. As such, the pair conclude that ‘any long term agreement with Iran must ensure that illicit nuclear procurement is both prohibited and prevented’.
The article can be found here.