LONDON: German intelligence has confirmed that Iran was actively seeking nuclear capabilities throughout 2019.
Experts believe this shows it is time for European countries to send a clear message to Tehran by finally abandoning the long-broken Iran nuclear deal.
A new report by the German domestic intelligence service BfV disclosed that Tehran had tried to secure illicit goods and information for its nascent nuclear program throughout 2019, in violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which restricted Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
The BfV said it was “able to find occasional indications of Iranian proliferation-related procurement attempts for its nuclear program” in 2019.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, board member for the Harvard International Relations Council, told Arab News that the EU signatories of the JCPOA — Germany, the UK and France — have long been “conspicuously ignoring credible intelligence reports and disregarding Tehran’s nuclear activities.”
He added: “The announcement by German intelligence shows that Iran has demonstrated its interest in, and pursuit of, nuclear weapons.”
Reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found traces of uranium at nuclear facilities in Iran, Rafizadeh said, confirming “that Iran was most likely violating the JCPOA since day one.”
Despite Tehran’s attempts to procure nuclear weaponry and a number of serious incidents — including tanker seizures by Iran, an uptick in missile attacks by Iranian proxies, and the activation of dispute mechanisms within the JCPOA — the European nations have remained resolute in their commitment to the deal.
The German revelations beg the question: How can Paris, Berlin and London continue to support the deal while Tehran flagrantly ignores it?
Ali Safavi, president of Near East Policy and a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said European nations have been misled by Tehran.
“This infatuation with the JCPOA derives from a misguided perception that by offering concessions, whether political or economic, the behavior of the regime would change. The exact opposite has happened,” he told Arab News.
Instead of changing, he said, Tehran “took the windfall from the JCPOA and cashed it at the bank. No amount of economic and political concession will result in any improvement in the situation of human rights in Iran.” Nor will it “incentivize Tehran to halt its malign activities in the region,” he added.
European nations have held out hope that Tehran could be trusted and that economic incentives would be enough to bring the rogue state back into the fold.
It is now time for a change of tact, said Dr. Shervan Fashandi, an Iranian-Canadian political analyst and board member for Iranian Americans for Liberty.
“We need to acknowledge that the deal is dead in all but name. The European powers insist on staying committed to a deal that has failed in achieving all its objectives,” he told Arab News.
“The sooner the Europeans face the reality of the failed deal and start pressuring the Islamic Republic to fundamentally change course, the higher the chance of achieving stability in the Middle East.”
He said Iran used the cash injection of the JCPOA’s sanctions relief to spread chaos across the region, sending funds and missiles to proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Tehran violated both “the terms and the spirit” of the JCPOA, he added.
This was possible, in part, because of European appeasement of Iran. Ceasing this course of action could be instrumental in ending Iran’s destabilizing behavior in the region, Fashandi said.
“The European trio officially abandoning the failed nuclear deal can send a strong and clear signal to the regime in Iran that time is up,” he added.
It would tell Tehran that “it needs to either fundamentally correct its behavior and act like a responsible member of the international community, or turn into a pariah state even further,” he said.
The JCPOA was agreed in 2015 between Iran, the US, China, Russia, Germany, France and the UK.
It provided Iran with sanctions relief in exchange for the curtailing of its nuclear program, and guaranteed international agencies access to nuclear sites in the country to verify their accordance with the deal.
But Iran has repeatedly denied IAEA inspectors access to certain nuclear sites, in violation of the terms of the JCPOA.