BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan. 8
By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:
The Iranian government has taken an important step toward peaceful nuclear activity, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said at the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers.
“This step has been achieved by reducing the number of commitments within the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA],” the president added, Trend reports referring to the presidential administration’s website.
"The world countries have seen that Iran's Atomic Energy Organization has no restrictions on the production and installation of various centrifuges, the percentage of enrichment, research and development as a result of the last fifth step," the president said.
The Iranian president added that Iran's Atomic Energy Organization has conducted preparatory work over the past two years, and from now on, Iran will see a major development in the nuclear industry.
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, 2019, 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.
Recently, Iran took the last fifth step in reducing the number of its commitments within JCPOA.