US, Iran explore options of 10-yr nuclear freeze

The US and Iran are exploring an option of a 10-year freeze on Tehran’s nuclear activities, a possible compromise between the two sides to reach a deal before the end of the deadline, a media report said on Tuesday.

No deal has been reached yet but significant progress in the talks of the P5+1 nations (China,
Russia, the UK, the US, France and Germany) with the Islamic republic ended on a positive note in Swiss city of Geneva, officials said.

“The US and Iran are exploring a nuclear deal that would keep Tehran from amassing enough material to make a bomb for at least a decade, but could then allow it to gradually build up its capabilities again,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Iran has insisted on no more than a 10-year freeze, it added. Such a deal would represent a significant compromise by the US, which had sought to restrain Tehran’s nuclear activities for as long as 20 years.

According to the daily, the US has been pushing for a freeze that would establish a period of time during which Iran would remain at least 12 months away from being able to fuel an atomic bomb?a so-called breakout period. Asked if Iran must accept that breakout period through the lifetime of an accord, a US official signaled that may not be necessary, the daily said.

“We have always said that we would have a one-year breakout time for a double-digit number of years and that remains the case,” the official was quoted as saying.

Such a move has been opposed by Republican leadership and expressed concern over such a long time frame.

“If you’re going to do all of this and then just end up with a 10-year agreement, you just really haven’t accomplished near what people had hoped,” said Senator Bob Corker, Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.