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      There have been a lot of stories about the Iran nuclear treaty that the U.S. withdrew from. Members of the U.S. government including President Trump are claiming that Iran wants to acquire nuclear weapons and international sanctions and other diplomatic pressures need to be ratcheted up in order to dissuade the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons. The Iranians say that they have no intention of developing nuclear weapons. Their leaders say that nuclear weapons are incompatible with their version of Islam. Now new reports from Germany intelligence agencies say that Iran is seeking technology that will be used for a nuclear weapons program.
      The Jerusalem Post just published an article about a report from the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommen that claims that Pakistan, Iran, North Korea and Syria are all suspected of trying to illegally purchase nuclear technologies. The report also says that Iran, China and Russia were the main suspects in attempts to gain intelligence on how to procure nuclear technology.
       The Bavarian state has also issued a report that says that Iran is “making efforts to expand its conventional arsenal of weapons with weapons of mass destruction”. The report defines these WMDs as atomic, biological and chemical weapons. According to the report, German law prevented the illegal export an electronic beam welding machine to Iran. One of the directors of a Bavarian company was convicted on charges of attempting to sell such a welding device to a customer in Iran. The agency that reported the attempted violation of the export law said that the seller had claimed that the purchaser was from Malaysia to disguise the fact that Iran was the real purchaser. This particular machine can be used to produce vehicles to launch missiles. The Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution confirmed that it would monitor Iranian actions to ensure that Iran “consistently and consequently complies with the international agreement signed in July of 2015.
       The agreement referred to in the Bavarian report is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal. The U.S., U.K., Russia, France, Germany, China and the European Union were signatories on the agreement with Iran. As part of the JCPA, Iran agreed to redesign, convert and reuse its nuclear facilities. The amount of uranium that Iran can refine annually is limited as is the total stockpile of refined uranium that Iran is allowed accumulate. Iran would also be forced to close their underground enrichment center near Frodo and to convert the facility to a nuclear, physics and technology center. Iran would be allowed to continue nuclear research that was approved by other signatories of the agreement. A heavy water facility in Arak would be prohibited from the production of weapons-grade plutonium.
       In July of 2018, President Trump announced that the U.S, would be withdrawing from the JCPA. The U.S. is trying to pressure other signatories of the JPCA into withdrawing from the agreement. The U.S. is threatening countries who do business with Iran with sanctions if they do not support the U.S. sanctions program. Other signatories are trying to work out an arrangement where Iran will stay in the JPCA even with the departure of the U.S.