BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 23. A member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Jalil Rahimi Jahanabadi expressed optimism about the possibility of reviving the JCPOA, the deal on Iran’s nuclear program that has been in limbo since the US pulled out of it, Trend reports.
Rahimi Jahanabadi claimed that the US left the JCPOA in 2018 to gain more concessions from Iran. However, this move backfired, as it led to Iran reducing the International Atomic Energy Agency’s access to its nuclear sites, installing new and more centrifuges, and increasing its uranium enrichment to 60 percent.
He argued that the US’s recent admission that leaving the JCPOA was a mistake was not helpful.
On January 17, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken acknowledged that the US’s withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 was a big blunder.
“I think the US’s withdrawal from the JCPOA hurts them more than us. Anyway, the deal can be salvaged if there is a new opportunity for dialogue and a rational interpretation of the JCPOA. This agreement was a significant achievement for Iran. Even though it was not perfect for the Western countries and the US, it was the best possible outcome at that time (2015),” he said.
Iran’s nuclear program was the subject of the JCPOA, a deal signed by Iran and the P5+1 group (US, Russia, China, UK, France, and Germany) in 2015 that came into force on January 16, 2016. However, on May 8, 2018, the US withdrew from the JCPOA and imposed new sanctions on Iran as of November 2018, affecting its oil exports and freezing its assets abroad. More than 700 banks, companies, and individuals were also targeted by the sanctions.
In late 2020, the Iranian parliament decided to implement a strategic plan to tackle the sanctions, citing the non-implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed between Iran and six countries and the imposition of sanctions on Iran.
According to the decision of the Iranian parliament, as of February 23, Iran suspended the implementation of additional steps and an additional protocol provided for in the nuclear deal. As a result, the control mechanism of the IAEA decreased by 20–30 percent.
Iran has been trying to resume talks with the other parties on its nuclear issue and revive the JCPOA. The main goals of Iran are to end the sanctions imposed by the US and Western countries, access funds frozen abroad, and resume its crude oil exports.
Iran claims that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, but the IAEA has reported that Iran has increased its highly enriched uranium by 27 percent in the last three months and now has 4,745 kilograms of enriched uranium. This is 15 times more than the amount allowed for Iran in the JCPOA.
---
Follow the author on X (Twitter):@BaghishovElnur