The White House is denying that the Obama administration and other Western powers agreed to give Iran “secret” exemptions from key provisions of the nuclear pact to help it meet a January implementation deadline.
A White House official took issue with the word “secret” and broadly referred to claims in a new report by the independent Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security as more “misinformation and distortion” by critics of the nuclear deal.
“The United States and its partners did not and will not allow Iran to skirt its Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action commitments,” the official said. “Iran completed all of the steps required to get to Implementation Day under the JCPOA, as verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency.”
“Any assertion to the contrary is completely false, including any assertion that we moved forward with Implementation Day before Iran met all of its nuclear-related commitments,” the official added in a statement sent to the Washington Examiner.
That statement, however, focused mainly on whether the exemptions were secret, not if they allowed Iran to meet implementation deadlines. The White House explanation also didn’t address specific exemptions laid out in the report and whether they were included.
The Institute said it based its report on information provided by several anonymous officials of governments involved in the negotiations, Reuters reported earlier Thursday. The group’s president, David Albright, is a former U.N. weapons inspector and co-author of the report.
The exemptions, the report states, included two that allowed Iran to exceed limits laid out in the nuclear agreement on how much low-enriched uranium it can maintain in its nuclear facilities. A joint commission created to oversee the deal’s implementation approved the exemptions.
The report quoted a senior “knowledgeable” official saying that the exemption enabled Iran to comply with implementation requirements even though some of its facilities were not meeting limits laid out in the underlying accord.
“It is of course true that the Joint Commission has met regularly to consult and provide guidance on implementation of the JCPOA — both before and since Implementation Day,” the White House official said. “This is not secret — the Joint Commission and its role in addressing implementation, have been publicly announced and reported, and the administration has briefedCongress frequently and comprehensively on all of the Joint Commission’s work.”
“We’ve seen repeated attempts by critics of the deal to undermine it with misinformation and distortions,” the official added. “What is undeniable is that the Iran deal has worked, as confirmed by the IAEA, in the face of consistent efforts to re-litigate political battles of last year.”
