BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 11. Iran is interested in cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Iran's nuclear activities are in compliance with the agency's regulations, Vice President of Iran and Chief of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Mohammad Eslami said, Trend reports.
According to Eslami, ensuring national interests is important for Iran. It is hoped that this interest will be ensured through bilateral and logical understanding with the agency. The accusations made by other countries are completely baseless.
The vice president added that there are two issues that the International Atomic Energy Agency has identified for cooperation with Iran. The first is the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and the second is the safeguards rules. So that all activities of Iran are under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The chief also noted that Iran is in full coordination with the agency on these two issues, and no non-compliance has been identified under the controls in place.
“Another issue is the special control that the UN Security Council has entrusted to IAEA with the resolution No. 2231 to limit Iran's nuclear activities. The IAEA has said in recent reports that Iran does not have control over its nuclear program, which is part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). If the obligations of the JCPOA are not implemented by any of the countries that signed it, it is natural that Iran will not follow it either,” 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 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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