Iran would be required to dilute its excess stockpiles of enriched uranium or ship them out of the country, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in an interview published Tuesday, a previously undisclosed condition of the understanding reached Thursday with international negotiators.
Moniz’s revelation, made in an interview with Politico, clarifies one of the many crucial questions about the framework announced last week in Lausanne, Switzerland: What will Iran do with the enriched uranium it possesses in excess of the 300 kilograms it would be allowed to keep, which is not enough to build a bomb?
The State Department fact sheet distributed to reporters on Thursday says only that “Iran has agreed to reduce its current stockpile of about 10,000 kg of low-enriched uranium to 300 kg of 3.67 percent LEU for 15 years.”
It did not specify how that would happen, leading some experts to speculate that it could be converted to uranium oxide, which could quickly be reconstituted into enriched uranium if Iran decides to break an agreement. Iranian officials had refused last week to ship the excess stockpiles out of the country.
But “simply converting it does not alleviate the issue,” Moniz told Politico. “Simple conversion to a different chemical form would not count.”
Moniz, a nuclear physicist, has taken the lead in the administration’s efforts to sell the understanding between Iran and the P5+1 countries — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — as a “historic” agreement that would meet President Obama’s goal of preventing Iran’s ruling theocracy from obtaining a nuclear weapon. That sales job has included briefings by administration officials to nuclear experts and reporters considered friendly to the process.
The understanding reached Thursday, which faces three more months of tough negotiations before being finalized by June 30, is designed to keep Iran one year away from being able to develop a nuclear weapon for at least 10 years.
Once it expires, Iran may still be able to develop a weapon quickly, Obama admitted in an NPR interview aired Tuesday.
