7:02 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Today, after two years of negotiations, the United
States, together with our international partners, has achieved something
that decades of animosity has not -- a comprehensive, long-term deal
with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
This deal demonstrates that American diplomacy can bring about real and
meaningful change -- change that makes our country, and the world,
safer and more secure. This deal is also in line with a tradition of
American leadership. It's now more than 50 years since President
Kennedy stood before the American people and said, "Let us never
negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate." He was
speaking then about the need for discussions between the United States
and the Soviet Union, which led to efforts to restrict the spread of
nuclear weapons.
In those days, the risk was a catastrophic nuclear war between two
super powers. In our time, the risk is that nuclear weapons will spread
to more and more countries, particularly in the Middle East, the most
volatile region in our world.
Today, because America negotiated from a position of strength and
principle, we have stopped the spread of nuclear weapons in this
region. Because of this deal, the international community will be able
to verify that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not develop a nuclear
weapon.
This deal meets every single one of the bottom lines that we
established when we achieved a framework earlier this spring. Every
pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off. And the inspection and
transparency regime necessary to verify that objective will be put in
place.
Because of this deal, Iran will not produce the highly enriched
uranium and weapons-grade plutonium that form the raw materials
necessary for a nuclear bomb.
Because
of this deal, Iran will remove two-thirds of its installed centrifuges
-- the machines necessary to produce highly enriched uranium for a bomb
-- and store them under constant international supervision. Iran will
not use its advanced centrifuges to produce enriched uranium for the
next decade. Iran will also get rid of 98 percent of its stockpile of
enriched uranium.
To put that in perspective, Iran currently has a stockpile that could
produce up to 10 nuclear weapons. Because of this deal, that stockpile
will be reduced to a fraction of what would be required for a single
weapon. This stockpile limitation will last for 15 years.
Because of this deal, Iran will modify the core of its reactor in Arak
so that it will not produce weapons-grade plutonium. And it has agreed
to ship the spent fuel from the reactor out of the country for the
lifetime of the reactor. For at least the next 15 years, Iran will not
build any new heavy-water reactors.
Because of this deal, we will, for the first time, be in a position to
verify all of these commitments. That means this deal is not built on
trust; it is built on verification. Inspectors will have 24/7 access to
Iran's key nuclear facilities.
*Iran
[Inspectors] will have access to Iran's entire nuclear supply chain --
its uranium mines and mills, its conversion facility, and its centrifuge
manufacturing and storage facilities. This ensures that Iran will not
be able to divert materials from known facilities to covert ones. Some
of these transparency measures will be in place for 25 years.
Because
of this deal, inspectors will also be able to access any suspicious
location. Put simply, the organization responsible for the inspections,
the IAEA, will have access where necessary, when necessary. That
arrangement is permanent. And the IAEA has also reached an agreement
with Iran to get access that it needs to complete its investigation into
the possible military dimensions of Iran's past nuclear research.
Finally,
Iran is permanently prohibited from pursuing a nuclear weapon under the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which provided the basis for the
international community's efforts to apply pressure on Iran.
As
Iran takes steps to implement this deal, it will receive relief from
the sanctions that we put in place because of Iran's nuclear program --
both America's own sanctions and sanctions imposed by the United Nations
Security Council. This relief will be phased in. Iran must complete
key nuclear steps before it begins to receive new sanctions relief. And
over the course of the next decade, Iran must abide by the deal before
additional sanctions are lifted, including five years for restrictions
related to arms, and eight years for restrictions related to ballistic
missiles.
All
of this will be memorialized and endorsed in a new United Nations
Security Council resolution. And if Iran violates the deal, all of
these sanctions will snap back into place. So there's a very clear
incentive for Iran to follow through, and there are very real
consequences for a violation.
That's
the deal. It has the full backing of the international community.
Congress will now have an opportunity to review the details, and my
administration stands ready to provide extensive briefings on how this
will move forward.
As
the American people and Congress review the deal, it will be important
to consider the alternative. Consider what happens in a world without
this deal. Without this deal, there is no scenario where the world
joins us in sanctioning Iran until it completely dismantles its nuclear
program. Nothing we know about the Iranian government suggests that it
would simply capitulate under that kind of pressure. And the world
would not support an effort to permanently sanction Iran into
submission. We put sanctions in place to get a diplomatic resolution,
and that is what we have done.
Without
this deal, there would be no agreed-upon limitations for the Iranian
nuclear program. Iran could produce, operate and test more and more
centrifuges. Iran could fuel a reactor capable of producing plutonium
for a bomb. And we would not have any of the inspections that allow us
to detect a covert nuclear weapons program. In other words, no deal
means no lasting constraints on Iran's nuclear program.
Such
a scenario would make it more likely that other countries in the region
would feel compelled to pursue their own nuclear programs, threatening a
nuclear arms race in the most volatile region of the world. It would
also present the United States with fewer and less effective options to
prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
I've
been President and Commander-in-Chief for over six years now. Time and
again, I have faced decisions about whether or not to use military
force. It's the gravest decision that any President has to make. Many
times, in multiple countries, I have decided to use force. And I will
never hesitate to do so when it is in our national security interest. I
strongly believe that our national security interest now depends upon
preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon -- which means that
without a diplomatic resolution, either I or a future U.S. President
would face a decision about whether or not to allow Iran to obtain a
nuclear weapon or whether to use our military to stop it.
Put
simply, no deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East.
Moreover, we give nothing up by testing whether or not this problem can
be solved peacefully. If, in a worst-case scenario, Iran violates the
deal, the same options that are available to me today will be available
to any U.S. President in the future. And I have no doubt that 10 or 15 years from now,
the person who holds this office will be in a far stronger position
with Iran further away from a weapon and with the inspections and
transparency that allow us to monitor the Iranian program.
For
this reason, I believe it would be irresponsible to walk away from this
deal. But on such a tough issue, it is important that the American
people and their representatives in Congress get a full opportunity to
review the deal. After all, the details matter. And we've had some of
the finest nuclear scientists in the world working through those
details. And we're dealing with a country -- Iran -- that has been a
sworn adversary of the United States for over 35 years. So I welcome a
robust debate in Congress on this issue, and I welcome scrutiny of the
details of this agreement.
But
I will remind Congress that you don't make deals like this with your
friends. We negotiated arms control agreements with the Soviet Union
when that nation was committed to our destruction. And those agreements
ultimately made us safer.
I
am confident that this deal will meet the national security interest of
the United States and our allies. So I will veto any legislation that
prevents the successful implementation of this deal.
We
do not have to accept an inevitable spiral into conflict. And we
certainly shouldn't seek it. And precisely because the stakes are so
high, this is not the time for politics or posturing. Tough talk from
Washington does not solve problems. Hard-nosed diplomacy, leadership
that has united the world's major powers offers a more effective way to
verify that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Now,
that doesn't mean that this deal will resolve all of our differences
with Iran. We share the concerns expressed by many of our friends in
the Middle East, including Israel and the Gulf States, about Iran's
support for terrorism and its use of proxies to destabilize the region.
But that is precisely why we are taking this step -- because an Iran
armed with a nuclear weapon would be far more destabilizing and far more
dangerous to our friends and to the world.
Meanwhile,
we will maintain our own sanctions related to Iran's support for
terrorism, its ballistic missile program, and its human rights
violations. We will continue our unprecedented efforts to strengthen
Israel's security -- efforts that go beyond what any American
administration has done before. And we will continue the work we began
at Camp David to elevate our partnership with the Gulf States to
strengthen their capabilities to counter threats from Iran or terrorist
groups like ISIL.
However,
I believe that we must continue to test whether or not this region,
which has known so much suffering, so much bloodshed, can move in a
different direction.
Time
and again, I have made clear to the Iranian people that we will always
be open to engagement on the basis of mutual interests and mutual
respect. Our differences are real and the difficult history between our
nations cannot be ignored. But it is possible to change. The path of
violence and rigid ideology, a foreign policy based on threats to attack
your neighbors or eradicate Israel -- that's a dead end. A different
path, one of tolerance and peaceful resolution of conflict, leads to
more integration into the global economy, more engagement with the
international community, and the ability of the Iranian people to
prosper and thrive.
This deal offers an opportunity to move in a new direction. We should seize it.
We
have come a long way to reach this point -- decades of an Iranian
nuclear program, many years of sanctions, and many months of intense
negotiation. Today, I want to thank the members of Congress from both
parties who helped us put in place the sanctions that have proven so
effective, as well as the other countries who joined us in that effort.
I
want to thank our negotiating partners -- the United Kingdom, France,
Germany, Russia, China, as well as the European Union -- for our unity
in this effort, which showed that the world can do remarkable things
when we share a vision of peacefully addressing conflicts. We showed
what we can do when we do not split apart.
And
finally, I want to thank the American negotiating team. We had a team
of experts working for several weeks straight on this, including our
Secretary of Energy, Ernie Moniz. And I want to particularly thank John
Kerry, our Secretary of State, who began his service to this country
more than four decades ago when he put on our uniform and went off to
war. He's now making this country safer through his commitment to
strong, principled American diplomacy.
History
shows that America must lead not just with our might, but with our
principles. It shows we are stronger not when we are alone, but when we
bring the world together. Today's announcement marks one more chapter
in this pursuit of a safer and more helpful and more hopeful world.
Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.
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