BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 14
By Elnur Baghishov - Trend
Iran may return to full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said, Trend reports citing IRIB.
According to Zarif, the remaining members of the JCPOA must change their behavior towards Iran for that to happen.
Zarif added that Iran has reduced its obligations under the agreement.
"The Comprehensive Joint Action Plan is a solid document. After the withdrawal of the United States from this agreement, the US officials have nothing to do with this agreement. The most important issue is between Iran and the remaining members of the agreement," he 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, 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. Later, Iran took the last fifth step in reducing the number of its commitments within JCPOA. Iran no longer faces any restrictions on its nuclear program.