U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Monday it remains unclear how long it will take to implement the nuclear agreement between Iran and six major powers and lift sanctions on Tehran, with Iran still having a “big job” ahead to meet its commitments.
The Wall Street Journal reported that in a news conference in Vienna on the sidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s annual conference, Mr. Moniz said that with Congress now appearing unlikely to block the nuclear deal, the Obama administration is turning its focus to implementation.
Under the terms of July’s agreement, the nuclear deal will be formally adopted in mid-October. However, before the plan is implemented, Iran must take a series of steps to significantly scale back its nuclear infrastructure and program while the six powers prepare the lifting of sanctions and take other steps in the regard.
“They’ve a big job ahead of them,” Mr. Moniz said of Iran. “Many have estimated the order of six months.
“It’s going to depend upon the scale of their trained manpower and the ability to do an awful lot of jobs in parallel. So we don’t know.”
Among the tasks Iran must complete before it receives sanctions relief is reducing its stockpile of fissile material by some 98%, removing more than 10,000 centrifuges from its declared nuclear facilities and taking out the core of the Arak plutonium reactor.
The IAEA must oversee the process and verify Iran has met its commitments before a wide range of economic and financial sanctions are lifted.
A number of Western officials have said they would expect the agreement to be implemented in early 2016.