TEHRAN: In a speech broadcast on national television on Wednesday, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran would resume high-level enrichment of uranium if world powers do not keep their promises.
Iran threatened to renege on some of its commitments under the historic 2015 nuclear agreement as, it feels, the European signatories of the agreement had not stirred a finger to protect its oil and banking sectors from US sanctions.
The nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is an international agreement that exchanges Iran’s nuclear ambitions for international sanctions relief.
Days after Iranian officials had held out a warning that the country might increase its uranium enrichment, potentially pulling away from the deal after spending a year trying to salvage it with European partners, Rouhani said Tehran would keep excess enriched uranium instead of selling it as it had committed in the nuclear deal.
In a move that came a year after the Donald Trump-ordered US pull-out, he gave 60 days to the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China and Russia to protect Iran from the crippling US economic sanctions.
Also, in a letter to ambassadors from the signatory countries, Iran said that it would roll back some of its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal.
Iran foreign ministry said: “The decision of the high security council to ‘stop acting on some of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s commitments under the JCPOA [nuclear deal]’ was communicated to the heads of state of the countries” still party to the deal.
According to Professor Mohamemd Marandi of University of Tehran, Iran’s patience has run out over the nuclear deal, adding that under Barack Obama, the US refrained from implementing the deal, but under Trump, the Americans had become very extremist, and ultimately they ripped up the agreement.
He felt that the Europeans, despite promises and nice words, had been effectively abiding by the dictates of Trump and Iran also had made major concessions in signing up to the nuclear deal.
“Now the government has decided ‘enough is enough’. And they will start decreasing Iran’s commitments, for the time being within the framework of the deal, to put pressure on the Europeans to start implementing their side of the bargain,” Marandi said.