JCPOA No Longer A One-Way Road: Iran’s Nuclear Chief
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s nuclear chief defended the country’s steps to reduce its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) following the other parties’ failure to live up to their undertakings and said the deal is no longer a one-way road.
Speaking to reporters at a joint press conference with the acting head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Cornel Feruta, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi pointed to the European parties’ failure to meet their JCPOA obligations and said, “This path was supposed to be two-way.”
“In a situation where the road is one-way, Iran certainly makes the right decisions at the right time, as it has done in taking three steps to reduce its obligations,” he said.
The Iranian nuclear chief emphasized that the JCPOA is not a one-way road any longer.
Feruta arrived in Tehran on Sunday to meet with Iran’s high-ranking officials, including Salehi and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, AEOI Spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi announced details of the country’s “third step” in reducing commitments under the JCPOA.
Back in July, Iran had declared the second step to reduce its commitments by ramping up the level of uranium enrichment to over 3.67 percent.
Iran maintains that the new measures are not designed to harm the nuclear deal but to save the accord by creating a balance in the commitments.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, US, Britain, France, and Germany) on July 14, 2015, reached a conclusion over the text of the JCPOA.
The accord took effect in January 2016 and was supposed to terminate all nuclear-related sanctions against Iran all at once, but its implementation was hampered by the US policies and its eventual withdrawal from the deal.
On May 8, 2018, US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the nuclear accord.
Following the US withdrawal, Iran and the remaining parties launched talks to save the deal.
However, the EU’s failure to ensure Iran’s economic interests forced Tehran to stop honoring certain commitments, including an unlimited rise in the stockpile of enriched uranium.
Kamalvandi recently said that the country’s enriched uranium stockpile has reached 360 to 370 kilograms.
