Five key issues in US-Iran nuclear talks as 60-day clock begins

President Trump’s signature on a deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz set off a 60-day clock starting Thursday to hone the details of what administration officials hope will be a final agreement to end Tehran’s nuclear weapons ambitions and shore up other issues.

The 14-point, relatively vague memorandum of understanding (MOU), signed by Trump late Wednesday at the Palace of Versailles, is void of significant Iranian concessions on its nuclear program, weapons arsenal and its long-standing practice of funding militant proxies throughout the Middle East. Trump insists these issues will be dealt with over the next two months.

It does allow Iran to gain $300 billion in funds to rebuild — if the country honors the agreement — and Tehran in exchange has agreed to not to build nuclear weapons and hand over its enriched uranium, the details of which are expected to be hammered out.

Those talks are sure to be difficult, with Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei saying he authorized the MOU’s signing even as he “held a different view.”

Critics speculate the two sides may never be able to reach an agreement that goes beyond the terms outlined in the memo, let alone in just two months.

In comparison, it took the Obama administration 20 months of negotiations to reach the original Iran nuclear deal, known as the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Here are five key issues in the talks.

Obtaining a nuclear weapon

One of Trump’s main objectives in entering the Iran war was to prevent Tehran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon, a goal he again stated during a Wednesday news conference at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in France.

But in addition to preventing the regime from building its own nuclear weapons, he stressed Iran could never “procure” a nuclear weapon.

The new memorandum states as much, with Iran reaffirming “that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.”

How that will be enforced is expected to be decided in the next round of negotiations. 

Dismantling Iran’s missile program, one of Trump’s other priorities in entering the war, doesn’t show up in the MOU text.

The president on Wednesday defended letting Tehran have its arsenal of ballistic missiles, saying it will be one of the issues not related to Iran’s nuclear program that the U.S. will work on with Persian Gulf allies.  

“Missiles........

© The Hill