Washington, D.C. — With the deadline for a political agreement on principles in the ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran approaching next week, the Center for American Progress has released a brief outlining what an effective deal could look like, analyzing possible scenarios, and making recommendations on steps the United States should take to reassure its allies and maintain unity among the negotiating partners.
Negotiations on the political principles that would undergird a nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 countries—the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany—are due to conclude on March 24. According to CAP, those negotiations should center around a set of key principles that include the monitoring of Iranian nuclear activity, the length of time it would take for Iran to ramp up efforts to create a weapon, the length of deal, and the lifting of sanctions imposed by the international community on Iran. An agreement based on these principles, with all its limitations, would be better than no deal.
“While the actual details of the negotiations have not emerged, there are several key areas in which the P5+1 countries must hold the line if a real and effective deal with Iran is to be reached,” said Shlomo Brom, CAP Visiting Fellow and author of the brief. “The terms of an Iranian deal would have real domestic and international repercussions, and the outcome may still not be clear by the March 24 deadline. In any event, the United States must make a great effort to reassure the international community of its ability to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and maintain the unity of negotiating partners if the talks move from agreements on principles to the technical aspects of a deal.”
In addition to analyzing the key aspects of a deal, the brief offers possible scenarios that could play out at the conclusion of the negotiations, as well as steps the United States should take before and after the outcome of the negotiations is known.
Click here to read the brief.
For more information on this topic or to speak with an expert, contact Tom Caiazza at [email protected] or 202.481.7141.
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