BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 28
By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:
So far, Iran's steps of reducing the number of commitments within the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) have not been very serious, Former Director of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization’s Development Center and expert in nuclear issues Hussein Abniki said, Trend reports referring to SNN news agency.
“Iran may easily avoid the limits within JCPOA,” the expert added.
“Enrichment of 20 percent and 3.5 percent-uranium is one of Iran's main needs because uranium is required in the production of Tehran’s reactors and radio-isotopes,” Abniki said.
In January 2016, JCPOA was launched between Iran and the P5+1 group (US, Russia, China, UK, France and Germany) in connection with Iran's nuclear program. In May 2018, the US announced its withdrawal from the deal and imposed sanctions against Iran in November of the same year.
In order to preserve the agreements reached as part of the JCPOA, the European signatories of the deal stated in January 2019 that a financial mechanism for maintaining trade with Iran called INSTEX was formed.
On May 8, 2019, Iran announced that it had ceased fulfilling its commitments regarding the sale of over 300 kilograms of uranium, as stated in the deal, basing its decision on the other signatories having not fulfilled their obligations. On July 7, Iran announced that it will not be fulfilling its commitments regarding the enrichment of uranium at 3.67 percent and the reconstruction of the Arak Heavy Water Reactor Facility as stated in the deal.
On Sept. 5, Iran announced that it will enrich uranium using next-generation centrifuges and will not mix it with the enriched uranium residues as part of the third step of reducing commitments in JCPOA.
On Nov. 5, Iran announced that it took the fourth step in connection with reducing its commitments to the nuclear agreement. So, uranium gas is being pumped to the centrifuges at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant.