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For France, Arak Is a Deal Killer
(Al-Monitor) Meir Javedanfar - As important as trying to reach a negotiated settlement with Iran is, it is as important if not more important that such a deal creates confidence on both sides. Building the Arak heavy-water reactor, which could produce plutonium to make a bomb, while the talks continue, fails to create confidence; it does the opposite. It creates the impression that Iran is interested in maintaining the option of making a bomb. The Iranian regime has not allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit the site since 2011. The demand for a halt of construction of Arak is fair and logical. Iran believes that imposing new sanctions during talks undermines them and hurts confidence. So does building of a reactor that could produce bomb-making plutonium. The writer, an Iranian-Israeli Middle East analyst, teaches contemporary Iranian politics at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.