Friday, May 11, 2018
“Revisiting the Nuclear Agreement between Iran and the US, the JCPOA”
Talk by Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former nuclear negotiator for Iran and nuclear policy specialist at Princeton University.
Centre Congregational Church
193 Main St., Brattleboro, VT

 

The 2015 nuclear deal struck between Iran and six world powers – the US, UK, Russia, France, China, and Germany – was the signature foreign policy achievement of Barack Obama’s presidency. The initial framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in return for limitations to the country’s controversial nuclear energy programme, which international powers feared Iran would use to create a nuclear weapon. But Mr Obama’s close association with the deal put it in the crosshairs of his successor, Donald Trump, who has claimed that the deal was too lenient and that Iran has broken parts of the agreement

U.S. President Donald Trump reluctantly signed the Iran sanctions waiver on Jan. 12—a decision that must be made every 120 days under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—but promised that it would be the last time if the three European signatories (the United Kingdom, Germany and France, or “the P3”) cannot agree on substantial changes to the nuclear deal. That May 12 deadline, when Trump must decide whether to certify that Iran is in compliance, is rapidly approaching. This timely talk comes on the eve of that decision.

In his talk, Dr. Mousavian will assess the Iran nuclear deal and the lessons for US-Iran diplomacy that can be learned from it.