Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA) Signed
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was agreed in Vienna on 14 July 2015 between Iran and six powers — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — after twenty months of negotiation and a decade of crisis. Iran accepted limits designed to extend its breakout time to a bomb from a few months to about a year. It cut installed centrifuges from roughly 19,000 to 6,104, capped enrichment at 3.67 per cent, reduced its enriched uranium stockpile by 98 per cent to 300 kilograms, redesigned the Arak heavy water reactor so that it could not produce weapons-grade plutonium, and accepted the most intrusive inspection regime the IAEA had ever applied, including continuous monitoring of the whole fuel cycle. In exchange, nuclear-related sanctions were lifted and around $100 billion in frozen assets released. The critical limits were time-bound, with the enrichment caps expiring between 2025 and 2030 — the sunset clauses that opponents regarded as the fatal defect and supporters as the price of any agreement at all. The deal did not address ballistic missiles or Iran's regional proxies, deliberately, on the view that a nuclear Iran would make both worse. The IAEA repeatedly certified Iranian compliance. Donald Trump withdrew the United States in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions. Iran continued complying for a year and then began exceeding the limits, reaching 60 per cent enrichment by 2021. Talks to revive it failed. Israeli and American strikes hit Iranian nuclear sites in 2025. The IAEA has since lost much of its monitoring access, and the breakout time is now measured in weeks. Whether the withdrawal caused that or merely accelerated it is the central dispute about the episode.
- Year: 2015 CE
- Category: Diplomatic
