Arms Control Experts Urge Trump to Honor Iran Nuclear Deal
They warned in their statement that "unilateral action by the United States, especially on the basis of unsupported contentions of Iranian cheating, would isolate the United States." Last week, Mr. Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, suggested in a Washington speech
that the president would be justified in decertifying Iran even if it was technically honoring the accord.
They included Nobuyasu Abe, commissioner of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission; Hans Blix, former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Thomas E. Shea, a former safeguards official at the International Atomic Energy Agency;
and Thomas M. Countryman, a former assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation.
When he reluctantly signed the last recertification in July, Mr. Trump said "if it was up to me, I would have had them noncompliant 180 days ago." The possibility
that Mr. Trump may find a reason to declare Iran noncompliant, regardless of the merits, alarmed the nonproliferation experts.
In a joint statement, the experts said the 2015 agreement, negotiated by the Obama administration
and the governments of Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, was a "net plus for international nuclear nonproliferation efforts." Because of the monitoring powers contained in the agreement, they said, Iran’s capability to produce nuclear weapons had been sharply reduced.
13, 2017
Alarmed that President Trump may soon take steps that could unravel the international nuclear agreement with
Iran, more than 80 disarmament experts urged him on Wednesday to reconsider and said the accord was working.
They also said the agreement made it "very likely that any possible future effort by Iran to pursue nuclear weapons, even a clandestine program, would be detected promptly."
Mr. Trump has repeatedly assailed the agreement — a signature achievement of his predecessor — describing it as "a terrible deal" and a giveaway to Iran.
