Iran announces details of scaling back nuclear commitments
Spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz Kamalvandi on Saturday announced details of the country’s third step in reducing commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal known, as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“After (reaching) the JCPOA, we were faced with non-commitments, whose culmination was the US withdrawal from the agreement,” Kamalvandi told reporters at a press conference in Tehran on Saturday.
Iran’s Establishment has decided to create a balance in the commitments under the deal until the other side returns to its undertakings, he added.
“One of Iran’s commitments under the JCPOA is related to the re-design of the Arak reactor,” he said, adding, “Another is about production of heavy water.”
“The third issue is the reprocessing of spent (nuclear) fuel. Another is the level of enrichment. The next is research and development. Three other issues are Fordow, the stockpiles, and the IAEA’s supervision and access (to Iran’s nuclear sites),” he went on to say.
He also said the reduction of JCPOA commitments related to research and development will facilitate the enrichment of uranium up to a level of 1,000,000 SWU.
Today, the reduction of commitments related to four of the above-mentioned issues has begun, he noted.
He also said Iran has started feeding uranium gas into chains of 20 advanced IR6 centrifuges as well as IR4 centrifuges.
Back in July, Iran declared the second step to reduce its commitments by ramping up the level of uranium enrichment to over 3.67 percent.
Iran maintains that the new measures are not designed to harm the nuclear deal but to save the accord by creating a balance in the commitments.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, US, Britain, France, and Germany) on July 14, 2015, reached a conclusion over the text of the JCPOA.
The accord took effect in January 2016 and was supposed to terminate all nuclear-related sanctions against Iran all at once, but its implementation was hampered by the US policies and its eventual withdrawal from the deal.
On May 8, 2018, US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the nuclear accord.
Following the US withdrawal, Iran and the remaining parties launched talks to save the deal.
However, the EU’s failure to ensure Iran’s economic interests forced Tehran to stop honoring certain commitments, including an unlimited rise in the stockpile of enriched uranium.
Kamalvandi recently said that the country’s enriched uranium stockpile has reached 360 to 370 kilograms.
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