Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor. Photo: Wikipedia.

JNS.org – The US State Department has denied the existence of a so-called “secret document” in the Iranian nuclear deal that outlines how Iran would be able to more quickly produce a nuclear weapon by ramping up its uranium enrichment after the year 2027.

“There is no secret document or secret deal,” US State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner said.

Instead, Toner said the document “appears to be Iran’s long-term enrichment R&D plan that was submitted by Iran to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) as part of its initial Addition Protocol declaration.”

Toner added that the Iran deal “explicitly refers to this document,” and that its substance was made available to the U.S. Congress “on multiple occasions” before and after the deal.

On Monday, the Associated Press obtained a document which was the only part of the nuclear deal that was not made public last year. The document outlines how key restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program will ease in slightly more than a decade, which will cut the time Tehran needs to produce a nuclear weapon from a year to six months.

“As of January 2027 — 11 years after the deal was implemented — Iran can start replacing its mainstay centrifuges with thousands of advanced machines,” the Associated Press wrote in its report. “From year 11 to 13, says the document, Iran can install centrifuges up to five times as efficient as the 5,060 machines it is now restricted to using….Because they are more effective, they will allow Iran to enrich at more than twice the rate it is doing now.”