BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 31. Recently, the activity around Iran's nuclear program has picked up, in particular with some countries, Trend reports.
In particular, Sultan of Oman Haitham bin Tariq visited Iran and held talks with Iranian officials. Also, Iran and the IAEA announced that they have made progress on some issues related to the nuclear program.
On the other hand, the US is taking various steps in this direction. Brett McGurk, US President Joe Biden's senior Middle East adviser secretly visited Oman and discussed with Omani officials the possibility of an agreement with Iran on Iran's nuclear program. Also, the US State Department's Special Representative for Iran Robert Malley also said in his statement that Washington is seeking a diplomatic solution with Tehran regarding Iran's nuclear program. Malley said that the goal of the US is to find a way to guarantee that Iran will not be able to obtain a nuclear weapon.
On the other hand, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly stated that Iran is not after nuclear weapons.
However, Iran's continuation of its nuclear program outside the provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has caused certain concerns.
Reportedly, on June 15, 2023, a meeting of the Board of Directors of the International Atomic Energy Agency will be held in Vienna. A number of issues will be discussed at the meeting, including the implementation of the agreement on Iran's nuclear activities and control of nuclear facilities within the UN Security Council Resolution No. 2231.
During the recent talks, two important controversial issues were resolved between the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
As reported, the issue raised by the IAEA regarding the Abadeh nuclear facility in Fars province in the south of Iran, as well as the issue about the discovery of 83.7 percent enriched uranium remains in Iran, have already been resolved.
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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