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June 2, 2022
PressRoom

High-Level Group Issues Appeal to Biden and Putin to Reduce Nuclear Weapons Dangers

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For Immediate Release: June 8, 2021

Media Contacts: Ira Helfand, past president, IPPNW (1-413-320-7829); Sergey Batsanov, Pugwash Conferences (+41-791-554-610); Rachel Bronson, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (1-312-404-3071); Daryl Kimball, executive director, Arms Control Association (1-202-463-8270 ext. 107).

(Washington, D.C./Moscow)—In advance of the first summit between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Joseph R. Biden in Geneva on June 16, a group of more than 30 American and Russian organizations, international nuclear policy experts, and former senior officials have issued an appeal to the two Presidents calling upon them to launch a regular dialogue on strategic stability, to take meaningful steps to reduce the risk of nuclear war, and to make further progress on nuclear arms control and disarmament.

The statement was organized by leaders of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Pugwash Conference on Science and Global Affairs, the recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Peace, and the Arms Control Association.

In the statement, which was delivered to the two governments on June 7, the signatories urge the two presidents to: "Commit to a bilateral strategic dialogue that is regular, frequent, comprehensive and result-oriented leading to further reduction of the nuclear risk hanging over the world and to the re-discovery of the road to a world free of nuclear weapons.”

Sergey Batsanov of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs emphasized that the summit "could be a launching point for talks on strategic stability in all its aspects. Stability is being eroded by multiple factors—geopolitical, technological, military, doctrinal, and others—raising the threat of nuclear war and undermining the security of all states. Addressing this issue would also facilitate new nuclear arms control and disarmament negotiations.”

Ira Helfand, past president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, said: “It is urgent that President Biden and President Putin reaffirm the ground-breaking statement issued by Gorbachev and Reagan in 1985 that 'a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.’”

“U.S. and Russia are still armed with thousands of nuclear weapons. It is by no means certain that the two sides will continue to have enough good luck, responsible leadership, and managerial competence to avoid catastrophe,” warned Rachel Bronson, president of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “We urge the two presidents to seize the opportunity their summit provides to put us back on the road toward a world free of nuclear weapons.”

Among the other signatories of the Appeal are: Peter Buijs, M.D., chair of the Netherlands IPPNW, who initiated the Appeal; Igor Ivanov, former Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation; Academician Alexandre Dynkin, Chair, Russian Pugwash Committee; William J. Perry, former U.S. Secretary of Defense; Amb. Sergio Duarte, president of the Pugwash Conferences; General Vyacheslav Trubnikov, IMEMO (Institute of World Economy and International Relations); Joan Rohlfing, president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative; Edmund G. Brown Jr., former Governor of California Executive Chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; and Colonel General Victor Esin, former chief of staff, Russian Strategic Missile Forces.

The full text of the appeal and the complete list of signers is available online at the websites of the Arms Control Association, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and the Pugwash Conference.

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In advance of the June 16 summit between Presidents Biden and Putin, more than 30 American and Russian organizations, international nuclear policy experts, and former senior officials have issued an appeal to the two Presidents calling upon them to launch a regular dialogue to reduce the risk of nuclear war.

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Biden Budget Should Support More Cost-Effective, Stabilizing, Saner Nuclear Strategy

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Experts Available for Comment on Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Request

For Immediate Release: May 27, 2021

Media Contacts: Kingston Reif, director for disarmament policy, 202-463-8270 ext. 104; Shannon Bugos, research associate, 202-463-8270 ext. 113

(Washington, D.C.)—The Biden administration is set to release its fiscal year 2022 national defense budget request May 28. The request is expected to continue forward with most, if not all, of the Trump administration’s excessive plans to sustain and modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Failure to adjust the existing approach would be a disappointing missed opportunity to put the modernization effort on a more cost-effective and stable footing while ensuring a strong deterrent.

The United States is planning to spend $634 billion over the next decade to sustain and modernize its arsenal, according to a Congressional Budget Office report published Monday. This is an increase of $140 billion, or 28 percent, from the previous 10-year projection. The major uptick in spending will compete with other national security priorities, such as strengthening pandemic defense and response and augmenting U.S. conventional military capabilities, amid what most experts believe will be a flat defense budget over the next several years.

During the campaign, President Biden said the United States “does not need new nuclear weapons” and that his “administration will work to maintain a strong, credible deterrent while reducing our reliance and excessive expenditure on nuclear weapons.” Biden is right. Current U.S. nuclear weapons policies exceed what is necessary for a credible nuclear deterrent, and the financial and opportunity costs of the current modernization plan are rising fast.

The Biden administration’s topline discretionary budget request released in April said that “While the Administration is reviewing the U.S. nuclear posture, the discretionary request supports ongoing nuclear modernization programs while ensuring that these efforts are sustainable.” But several current U.S. nuclear modernization efforts do not meet the “sustainable” criterion.

As the Government Accountability Office noted in a report published May 6, “every nuclear triad replacement program—including the B21, LRSO, GBSD, and Columbia class submarine, and every ongoing bomb and warhead modernization program—faces the prospect of delays due to program-specific and DOD- and DOE-wide risk factors.”

Meanwhile, projected spending on nuclear warheads and infrastructure at the Energy Department’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration has ballooned to $505 billion, according to the agency’s 25-year plan published in December. That represents a staggering increase of $113 billion from the 2020 version of the plan.

The Trump administration’s nuclear weapons policies and spending plans demand a fundamental rethinking.

The Biden administration had little time to prepare the fiscal year 2022 budget request. A forthcoming review of U.S. nuclear policy and posture will evaluate existing policies and spending plans in more detail. In keeping with President Biden’s views, the review should pursue a nuclear posture that is more stabilizing, supports the pursuit of additional arms control and reduction measures designed to enhance stability and reduce the chance of nuclear conflict, and frees up taxpayer dollars for higher priority national and health security needs.

Experts Available:

  • Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy, [email protected], 202-463-8270 ext. 104
  • Shannon Bugos, research associate, [email protected], 202-463-8270 ext. 113

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Experts Available for Comment on Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Request

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Arms Control Experts on the Incident at Iran’s Natanz Nuclear Facility

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For Immediate Release: April 11, 2021

Media Contacts: Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy, 202-463-8270 ext. 102; Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, 202-463-8270 ext. 107

Israel allegedly sabotaged the power supply for Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility April 11 causing a blackout at the main uranium enrichment plant. While the extent of the damage from the power outage remains unclear, this act of sabotage comes during a critical phase in the ongoing diplomatic efforts to bring the United States and Iran back into compliance with the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The United States and Iran engaged in indirect discussions in Vienna last week and are scheduled to resume indirect talks with the other parties to the JCPOA on April 13.

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  • “This act of sabotage damaged not only Natanz but also the Biden administration’s plan to return to compliance with the nuclear deal. Restoring the 2015 agreement and building on is the best way to address the risk posed by Iran’s nuclear program. The United States and Iran mustn't let this attack derail the progress being made in Vienna.”—Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy, Arms Control Association
     
  • “In the wake of the attacks on the Natanz nuclear facility, all International Atomic Energy Agency member states should support a thorough investigation of this incident and condemn this attack, and any other future attack, on nuclear facilities in any country. Just as it is essential that the international community must address any violations of nuclear nonproliferation commitments, it must respond to attacks involving physical sabotage of nuclear facilities as threats to international peace and security.” —Daryl Kimball, executive director, Arms Control Association

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The alleged sabotage of Iran's Natanz nuclear facility comes during a critical phase in the ongoing diplomatic efforts to bring the United States and Iran back into compliance with the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal.

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New UK Defense Strategy A Troubling Step Back on Nuclear Policy

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For Immediate Release: March 15, 2021

Media Contacts: Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, (202) 463-8270 ext 107; Kingston Reif, director for disarmament policy, (202) 463-8270 ext 104

The United Kingdom announced today that it will move to increase its total nuclear warhead stockpile ceiling by over 40 percent and reduce transparency about its nuclear arsenal. This is a needless and alarming reversal of the longstanding British policy to reduce the number and role of nuclear weapons.

These changes, which are outlined in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, are also inconsistent with the British government’s prior pledges on nuclear disarmament under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The United Kingdom now joins China and perhaps Russia as the permanent members of the UN Security Council that are planning to increase the size of their warhead stockpiles. Open source estimates put the current size of the British arsenal at 195 warheads.

The review attributes the need to increase the total stockpile ceiling from the goal of 180 warheads (which was reaffirmed in 2015) to 260 warheads to “the evolving security environment, including the developing range of technological and doctrinal threats,” but it does not explain how raising the number of warheads will enhance deterrence against these threats.

The United Kingdom’s decision to increase its warhead stockpile will contribute to the growing competition and distrust between nuclear-armed states. There is no compelling military or strategic rationale that justifies such an increase.

The review also states that the United Kingdom, which fields its warheads on sea-based ballistic missiles, will “no longer give public figures for our operational stockpile, deployed warhead or deployed missile numbers.” Like the United States, the United Kingdom’s past commitment to transparency about its nuclear forces has set it apart from other nuclear powers. Both governments have rightly criticized China for its excessive nuclear secrecy, for example. Such opacity is irresponsible and undemocratic.

The next NPT Review Conference slated for this summer was already poised to be a difficult and contentious one given the Trump administration’s efforts to expand the role and capability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, Russia’s development of grotesque new nuclear delivery systems (such as a nuclear-armed torpedo), and China’s continued modernization and expansion of its nuclear forces. The United Kingdom’s decision to increase its arsenal and clamp down on transparency will further worsen the atmosphere.

In addition, the United Kingdom’s new direction will complicate the Biden administration’s efforts to pursue further bilateral arms control and reduction measures with Russia. Russia has been adamant that any future nuclear cuts beyond the limits contained in the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) should take into account the arsenals of the other nuclear-armed states, especially the United Kingdom and France. Moscow can be expected to make this argument even more forcefully after the United Kingdom’s announcement today.

President Biden and has pledged to “take steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.”

With the United Kingdom headed in the opposite direction, the Biden administration should cast an even more critical eye on the Trump administration’s weak rationale for accelerating the development of a newly designed third submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead (known as the W93) - and London’s lobbying of the U.S. Congress for support of U.S. funding for this new weapon.

The Trump administration justified the W93 in part on the grounds that it is vital to continuing U.S. support of the United Kingdom’s nuclear arsenal. But the United States can continue to support its ally without rushing forward with this new and unnecessary new nuclear warhead program.

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Statement from the Arms Control Association 

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Carol Giacomo Joins ACA as Chief Editor of Arms Control Today

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For Immediate Release: March 11, 2021

Media Contacts: Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, (202) 463-8270 ext. 107; Kathy Crandall Robinson, chief operating officer, (202) 463-8270 ext 101

(Washington, DC)—The Arms Control Association is pleased to announce that Carol Giacomo, an award-winning diplomatic and national security correspondent, will become the chief editor of Arms Control Today as of April 1.

Carol Giacomo was a member of The New York Times editorial board from 2007-2020 writing opinion pieces about all major national security issues, including nuclear weapons. Her work involved regular overseas travel, including trips to North Korea, Iran, and Myanmar. She met a half dozen times with President Obama at the White House and interviewed scores of other world leaders.

A former diplomatic correspondent for Reuters in Washington, she covered foreign policy for the international wire service for more than two decades and traveled over 1 million miles to more than 100 countries with eight secretaries of state and other senior U.S. officials.

In 2018, she won an award from The American Academy of Diplomacy, an organization of retired career diplomats, for outstanding diplomatic commentary. In 2009, she won the Georgetown University Weintal Prize for diplomatic reporting. She has also won two publisher’s awards from The New York Times.

"We are very excited and honored to have Carol join our team," noted executive director Daryl Kimball. "She will bring a great deal of energy and professionalism, along with creative and insightful ideas, that will make Arms Control Today even better."

Published by the Arms Control Association since 1972, Arms Control Today (ACT) is printed 10 times each year and reaches over 50,000 readers monthly through print and online editions. ACT has a highly targeted circulation, including U.S. and foreign government officials and diplomats, scientists, university educators, students, consultants, contractors, active and retired military personnel, news media, and concerned citizens.

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The Arms Control Association is pleased to announce that Carol Giacomo, an award-winning diplomatic and national security correspondent, will become the chief editor of Arms Control Today as of April 1.

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Nonproliferation Experts Call for Faster Action to Restore U.S. and Iranian Compliance with 2015 Nuclear Deal

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For Immediate Release: Feb 22, 2021

Media Contacts: Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy, (202) 463-8270 ext. 103; Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, (202) 463-8270 ext. 107

(Washington, DC)—Nonproliferation experts are calling on the European Union, the United States, and Iran to immediately begin technical talks on the steps necessary to restore compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

"We support European Union efforts to immediately convene discussions involving the current parties of the agreement, plus the United States, on the sequencing of the actions that the U.S. and Iranian sides will each need to take to properly implement and restore compliance with the nuclear deal,” said Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy.

"The EU should make clear that these talks are about coordinating the sequencing of the return to compliance and addressing any technical issues that might need to be resolved—such as the future of Iran’s advanced centrifuges not mentioned in the JCPOA—and that this not a renegotiation of the original agreement," she suggested.

"We urge Iran and the other JCPOA parties to respond positively to EU-brokered discussions,” Davenport added.

In a Feb. 1 interview with CNN, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif suggested that Josep Borrell, the EU’s top foreign policy official, could “synchronize” or “choreograph” the moves that the U.S. and Iranian sides will each need to implement to restore compliance with the JCPOA.

The State Department announced Feb. 18 that "the United States would accept an invitation from the European Union High Representative to attend a meeting of the P5+1 and Iran to discuss a diplomatic way forward."

But Daryl Kimball, executive director at the Arms Control Association, cautioned that “the IAEA-Iran temporary arrangement on nuclear monitoring keeps open the diplomatic window of opportunity to salvage the nuclear deal, but the opportunity will not last."

“To accelerate progress and signal his intentions, we also urge President Biden to state clearly that the United States will remove the sanctions reimposed by former president Donald Trump in violation of U.S. commitments under the JCPOA when the IAEA verifies Iran is reversing its breaches of JCPOA limits,” Kimball suggested.

“It is also in the United States interest to immediately waive sanctions on multilateral nonproliferation activities mandated by the JCPOA to convert Iran Arak heavy water reactor. This move would further signal the Biden administration’s intentions to meet U.S. commitments under the JCPOA,” he added.

"A return to full compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal by both sides would provide a solid foundation for potential follow-on negotiations on a longer-term framework to address Iran's nuclear program as well as on new, win-win solutions on other areas of concern, such as regional tensions and the ballistic missile programs of Iran and other states in the Middle East,” Kimball said.

Additional Resources

To help explain what is at stake and what needs to happen to restore compliance with the JCPOA and create conditions for follow-on talks, the ACA policy staff has produced three new factsheets:

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Nonproliferation experts are calling on the European Union, the United States, and Iran to begin talks on restoring compliance with the JCPOA

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New Resources on the Iran Nuclear Deal and Steps to Restore Iranian and U.S. Compliance

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For Immediate Release: Feb. 12, 2021

Media Contacts: Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy, (202) 463-8270 ext. 102; Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, (202) 463-8270 ext. 107

The comprehensive 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 verifiably blocked Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons and provided incentives for Tehran to maintain a peaceful nuclear program.

Following the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal in May 2018 and Iranian retaliatory measures that began in 2019, however, the agreement is in jeopardy and Iran’s nuclear capacity is increasing.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani continue to say they would like to see all parties return to full compliance with the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). But the two sides have not yet worked out an agreement on the sequencing for doing so.

To help explain what’s at stake and what needs to happen to restore compliance with the JCPOA and create conditions for follow-on talks, the ACA policy staff has produced three new factsheets:

For a more in-depth analysis of how the Biden administration can stabilize the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, see the January 2021 Arms Control Association report, Nuclear Challenges for the New U.S. Presidential Administration: The First 100 Days and Beyond.

Promptly and simultaneously restoring U.S. and Iranian compliance with the JCPOA would help stabilize the current situation and preventing a new nuclear crisis in the region.

A return to full compliance with the nuclear deal would provide a platform for further negotiations on a long-term framework to address Iran's nuclear program and create space to engage with Iran on other areas of concern, such as regional tensions and the ballistic missile program of Iran and other states in the Middle East.

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To help explain what’s at stake and what needs to happen to restore compliance with the JCPOA and create conditions for follow-on talks, the ACA policy staff has produced three new factsheets.

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    Agreement to Extend New START a Win for Global Security

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    Statement from Executive Director Daryl G. Kimball

    For Immediate Release: Jan. 26, 2021

    Media Contacts: Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, (202) 463-8270 ext. 107; Kingston Reif, director for disarmament policy, (202) 463-8270 ext. 104

    We applaud the businesslike, no-nonsense decision by President Biden and President Putin to extend the New START agreement by five years—the maximum allowed under the 2010 treaty.

    Maintaining New START and its verification system will enhance U.S. and global security, curtail dangerous nuclear arms racing, and create the potential for more ambitious steps to reduce the nuclear danger and move us closer to a world without nuclear weapons.

    New START extension should be just the beginning and not the end of U.S. and Russian nuclear disarmament diplomacy. Both countries have a special responsibility and a national interest in reducing and eventually eliminating their bloated, costly, and deadly nuclear stockpiles, which are by far the largest among the world’s nine nuclear-armed actors.

    We urge President Biden and President Putin to go further by directing their diplomats to quickly—within the next 200 days—begin negotiations on a follow-on agreement to achieve deeper mutual reductions in their stockpiles, and seek ways to engage other nuclear-armed states, which possess far smaller but still deadly arsenals, in the nuclear disarmament enterprise.

    A key objective of the next round of bilateral talks should be, in part, deeper verifiable cuts in deployed strategic nuclear weapons. In 2013 the Obama administration determined that the United States could reduce its nuclear force by one-third below New START levels and still meet deterrence requirements. Unfortunately, President Putin rejected the proposal at that time.

    U.S.-Russian follow-on negotiations should also address nonstrategic nuclear weapons; the interrelationship between offensive nuclear weapons and strategic missile defenses; and long-range, dual-capable conventional missiles, including those formerly banned by the INF Treaty.

    Within the first 100 days, the Biden administration should also take steps that could allow the United States to rejoin the Open Skies Treaty so long as Russia continues to remain a party. The Trump administration’s announcement that it would withdraw from the agreement violated Sec. 1234 of the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which required the administration to notify Congress 120 days ahead of a U.S. notification of an intent to withdraw from the treaty. The Trump administration did not do so.

    The Biden administration clearly understands the value of effective nuclear arms control for U.S. and international security. As Joe Biden said in the past: “pursuing arms control is not a luxury or a sign of weakness, but an international responsibility and a national necessity."

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    A Statement from Executive Director Daryl G. Kimball

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    Entry into Force of Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty a Step Forward

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    For Immediate Release: January 21, 2021

    Media Contacts: Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, (202) 463-8270 ext. 107; Kingston Reif, director for disarmament policy, (202) 463-8270 ext. 104

    (Washington, D.C.)—On Jan. 22, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons formally enters into force.

    For the first time since the invention of the atomic bomb, nuclear weapons development, production, possession, use, threat of use, and stationing of another country’s nuclear weapons on a states party's national territory will all be expressly prohibited in a global treaty. The TPNW will also require states to provide assistance to those affected by nuclear weapons use and testing.

    “We welcome the arrival of the TPNW, which marks a historic and very positive step forward in the decades-long effort to prevent nuclear war and create a world free of nuclear weapons,” said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.

    “Rather than adopt the Trump administration’s misguided criticism of the TPNW as a threat to the NPT and repeat its clumsy attempt to get states un-sign the treaty, the incoming Biden administration should make it clear that the United States views the TPNW a good faith effort by the majority of the world’s nations to fulfill their own NPT-related disarmament obligations and help build the legal framework for the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons,” suggested former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, Tom Countryman, who serves as chair of the board of the Arms Control Association.

    “While the TPNW will not immediately eliminate any nuclear weapons, the treaty further delegitimizes nuclear weapons and strengthens the legal and political norm against their possession and use—and hopefully will compel renewed action by nuclear-weapon states to fulfill their commitment to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons,” Kimball said.

    “The TPNW is a powerful reminder that for the majority of the world’s states, nuclear weapons — and policies that threaten their use for any reason — are immoral, dangerous, and unsustainable,” Kimball added.

    The TPNW complements other nonproliferation and disarmament instruments, including the 1968 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The TPNW effort was also designed to fill a “legal gap” in the global nuclear nonproliferation regime.

    While the NPT obligates non-nuclear-weapon states to foreswear nuclear weapons, it recognized the five original nuclear-weapon states — the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China — that already possessed them at the time the NPT was negotiated.

    Article VI of the NPT obliges all of its 190 states parties to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” But the NPT does not explicitly ban nuclear weapons, and some nuclear-armed states (India, Israel, and Pakistan) are not members of the NPT.

    “This adjustment to the United States’ rhetorical approach to the TPNW, which can help begin to restore the U.S. reputation as a global leader and bridge-builder and it will improve Washington’s opportunity rally support around a meaningful consensus final document and action plan at the pivotal 10th NPT Review Conference in August 2021,” Countryman said.

    “Now that the TPNW exists, all states—whether they are opponents, supporters, skeptics, or undecideds on the treaty—need to learn to live with it responsibly and find creative ways to move forward together to press for progress on their common challenge: preventing nuclear conflict and eventually ridding the world of nuclear weapons,” Countryman suggested.

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    For the first time since the invention of the atomic bomb, nuclear weapons development, production, possession, use, threat of use, and stationing of another country’s nuclear weapons on a states party's national territory will all be expressly prohibited in a global treaty. 

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    Nonproliferation Experts Warn Biden on Urgent Need for U.S. Reentry into Iran Nuclear Deal

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    For Immediate Release:  January 14, 2021

    Media Contacts: Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, (202) 463-8270 ext. 107; Kelsey Davenport, director for disarmament policy, (202) 463-8270 ext. 102.

    (Washington, D.C.)—As Iran continues to threaten to take further steps in retaliation for Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a group of more than 70 former government officials and leading nuclear nonproliferation experts issued a joint statement today on why "returning the United States to compliance with its JCPOA obligations alongside Iran must be an urgent priority" for the incoming Biden administration.

    President Trump withdrew the JCPOA in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions that had been waived as part of the agreement. Iran remained in compliance through May 2019, but since then it has retaliated through calibrated violations of the agreement to pressure the remaining JCPOA parties to meet their commitments.

    The experts group writes that "[f]ailure to return to compliance with the nuclear deal increases the likelihood that the JCPOA will collapse," and that there exists only "a short window of opportunity following inauguration day for coordinated diplomatic action to fully restore the JCPOA’s restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s breaches of the deal are concerning. They also appear to be calibrated responses designed to pressure the remaining JCPOA parties to meet their commitments to deliver on the sanctions relief agreed to in the accord."

    The experts note that Iran's "uranium stockpile remains far below the pre-JCPOA levels, and Iran continues to cooperate with the more intrusive verification measures put in place by the accord. Almost all the violations reported to date are reversible."

    "Restoration of the JCPOA’s nuclear restrictions and its economic benefits for Iran stands the best chance of blocking Iran’s potential pathways to nuclear weapons, providing incentive and encouragement not to do so, and creating space for further diplomacy,” the experts conclude.

    "We strongly urge the incoming Biden administration to end the Trump administration’s failed policy of JCPOA withdrawal that has resulted in Iran advancing its nuclear program and undermined global efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. We urge all JCPOA parties to meet their respective obligations under the terms of the agreement and all states to support full implementation of the accord,” the experts write.

    Signatories of the letter include former IAEA Director-General Hans Blix, two former special representatives to the president of the United States on nonproliferation, and several former high-level officials from the National Security Council, the National Intelligence Council, and the State Department, among other agencies.

    The full text of the statement and list of signatories is available online.

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    Signatories of the letter include a former IAEA director-general, two former special representatives to the president of the United States on nonproliferation, and several former high-level officials from the National Security Council, the National Intelligence Council, and the State Department, among other agencies.

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