BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 31. Since the JCPOA is almost dead anyway, Iran may take steps within a new nuclear program-related plan, Iranian political analyst Mehdi Motahharnia said, Trend reports.
Without revealing any details of the 'new plan', the analyst said there's a framework being developed within the new strategy.
Motahharnia added that it is necessary to wait whether everyone in Iran will agree on the new format. He said that if Iran sticks to this new plan, it will be able to improve its economic conditions in a few months and benefit from its positive psychological effect.
However, the analyst agrees that the new plan may backfire in a sense that additional sanctions may follow, and this would result in Iran losing all the gained benefits. According to him, the current US administration does not intend to ease sanctions and restrictions on Tehran, even with bringing Iran back to the JCPOA.
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 on Iran in November of the same year. To preserve the agreements reached as part of the JCPOA, the European signatories of the deal started 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 that have 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.
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 Sept.5. 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.
On Jan.2020, Iran took the last fifth step in reducing the number of its commitments within JCPOA.
On May 8, 2018, the US announced its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the 5+1 group (Russia, China, the UK, France, the US, and Germany), and imposed new sanctions against Iran as of November 2018.
Over the past period, the sanctions affected Iranian oil exports, more than 700 banks, companies, and individuals. The sanctions have resulted in the freezing of Iranian assets abroad.
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