Year after US pullout, Rouhani says Tehran keeping excess uranium and heavy water; will resume high-level enrichment in 60 days if no new terms with remaining partners.
Iranian President's Office, President Hassan Rouhani visits the Bushehr nuclear power plant just outside of Bushehr, Iran, January 13, 2015. (Iranian Presidency Office, Mohammad Berno/AP)
Iran said Wednesday it was suspending some of its commitments under the landmark 2015 nuclear deal it signed with major powers, and that was abandoned by Washington last year, setting up a possible return to high-level uranium enrichment.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic Republic will keep its excess enriched uranium and heavy water, and set a 60-day deadline for new terms for its nuclear deal.
In a highly anticipated speech on the one-year anniversary of the US pulling out of the deal, he threatened higher-level uranium enrichment would resume if new nuclear deal terms are not reached by the deadline.
Rouhani said Iran wanted to negotiate new terms with remaining partners in the deal, but that the situation was dire. “We felt that the nuclear deal needs a surgery and the painkiller pills of the last year have been ineffective,” Rouhani said. “This surgery is for saving the deal, not destroying it.”
Iran sent letters Wednesday on its decision to the leaders of Britain, China, the European Union, France and Germany. All were signatories to the nuclear deal and continue to support it. A letter was also to go to Russia.
“If the five countries join negotiations and help Iran to reach its benefits in the field of oil and banking, Iran will return to its commitments according to the nuclear deal,” Rouhani said.
However, Rouhani warned of a “strong reaction” if European leaders instead sought to impose more sanctions on Iran via the U.N. Security Council. He did not elaborate.
There was no immediate response from the US. However, the White House said Sunday it would dispatch an aircraft carrier and a bomber wing to the Persian Gulf over what it described as a new threat from Iran.
The future of Iran’s Arak heavy-water IR-40 reactor is one of the major disagreement points between the US and the Islamic Republic. (Hamid Foroutan/ISNA/AFP/File)
In Moscow, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said the measures Iran was taking were permitted within the framework of the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
“The Islamic Republic has seen it suitable to stop acting on some of its commitments and measures it voluntarily undertook” under the nuclear deal, Zarif told state television.
Emphasizing that “Iran will not withdraw” from the deal, Zarif said “this right has been set for Iran in the JCPOA; we are not operating outside of the JCPOA but are in fact working in its framework.”
He said the measures were in line with Sections 26 and 36 of the deal, which allow Iran to cease some or all of its commitments if the United States or other parties fail to adhere to the agreement, including by reimposing sanctions.
In this photo from April 24, 2018, Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif speaks during the 72nd High-level Meeting on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace at United Nations Headquarters in New York. (Hector Retamal/AFP)
Under the terms of the deal, Iran can keep a stockpile of no more than 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of low-enriched uranium. That’s compared to the 10,000 kilograms (22,046 pounds) of higher-enriched uranium it once had.
The US last week ended deals allowing Iran to exchange its enriched uranium for unrefined yellowcake uranium with Russia, as well as being able to sell its heavy water to Oman. The US also has ended waivers for nations buying Iranian crude oil, a key source of revenue for Iran’s government.
Currently, the accord limits Iran to enriching uranium to 3.67%, which can fuel a commercial nuclear power plant. Weapons-grade uranium needs to be enriched to around 90%. However, once a country enriches uranium to around 20%, scientists say the time needed to reach 90% is halved. Iran has previously enriched to 20%.
US President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal in May last year but the other five signatories have all agreed to try to keep the pact alive on their own. Trump insists the original agreement did not go far enough in curbing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions and wants to renegotiate the JCPOA with stricter terms.
IAEA inspectors at Iran’s nuclear power plant in Natanz on January 20, 2014. (IRNA/AFP Kazem Ghane)
The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog says Iran has continued to comply with the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw it limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. But American sanctions have wreaked havoc on Iran’s already-anemic economy, while promised help from European partners in the deal haven’t alleviated the pain.
Already high tensions skyrocketed this week as US National Security Advisor John Bolton said on Sunday that the United States was sending an aircraft carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East in a “clear and unmistakable” message to Iran.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of planning “imminent” attacks on a hastily organized visit to neighboring Iraq on Tuesday.
In this photo released by the US Navy, a Sea Hawk helicopter prepares to land on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Adriatic Sea, May 2, 2019. (US Navy/Michael Singley)
Washington has also deployed an aircraft carrier strike group and several massive, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to the Middle East as national security adviser John Bolton warned Washington would respond with “unrelenting force” to any attack by Tehran.
Trump campaigned on a promise to tear up the deal struck by his predecessor, Barack Obama. While Trump has sought to dismantle much of Obama’s policies, he particularly criticized the Iran nuclear deal for failing to address Tehran’s ballistic missile program and what he described as its malign influence across the rest of the Mideast.
09/05/2019 by TIMES OF ISRAEL
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