20:15

The Obama administration has denied claims by a Washington thinktank that Iran has secretly been granted exemptions to a multilateral nuclear agreement signed last July in Vienna.



Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/AFP/Getty Images

A report by the Institute for Science and International Security alleged that a joint commission set up to implement the Vienna deal had allowed Iran to keep more than the agreed maximum of 300 kg of low enriched uranium (LEU) by excluding waste material in Iran’s nuclear facilities. If enriched further, LEU could be used in a nuclear warhead.

The institute’s director and co-author of the report, David Albright, said that this and other exemptions were granted by the commission in secret.

“One of the biggest problems is we are being denied information in these cases,” Albright said. “If the joint commission has so many powers to change this deal, shouldn’t we know what they’re doing?”

The state department denied that the 300 kg LEU limit set down in the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action (JCPOA), had been breached.

“There’s been no loosening of the commitments and Iran has not and will not under the JCPOA be allowed to exceed the limits that are spelled out in the JCPOA,” spokesman John Kirby said. He added the only violation of the terms of the deal had been a temporary surplus in Iran’s export of heavy water (which can be used in nuclear reactors to produce plutonium), but that had been corrected. Kirby also said the secrecy of the work of the joint commission, which represents all parties to the deal, was stipulated in last year’s deal, signed by six world powers (the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China), the EU and Iran.

“This is in compliance with the JCPOA which says the commission’s work should be confidential unless all parties agree otherwise,” Kirby said.