“What we are doing now is out of necessity and we have just sped up the process,” said Behrouz Kamalvandi, Deputy Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) on Tuesday.
The Iranian official made the remarks when asked if US was to blame for Iran's decision to produce new centrifuges and increase the capacity needed for production of UF6 and UF4 gases.
“If the Americans were committed to the agreement, we would have taken these measures with patience at a much slower speed," Kamalvandi said. "The reason we have decided to speed up the process is because of the Leader’s order."
Kamalvandi was referring to the remarks by Ayatollah Khamenei on Monday, in which the Leader called on the Atomic Energy Organization to make the necessary arrangements to reach the production of 190,000 SWU within the framework provided by the JCPOA.
“For now, we will continue our activities within the framework of the JCPOA, as stressed by the Leader, but at a faster pace, so that those tasks that we had planned to complete years later will be finished in a shorter span of time," Kamalvandi said.
After the unilateral withdrawal of US President Trump from the nuclear agreement and the reinstatement of sanctions, Iran says it will not accept to be both restricted by the provisions of the JCPOA and bear the brunt of US sanctions that were supposed to be removed under the agreement. Iran is still committed to the deal, waiting for the EU to provide it with solid guarantees that the country's economic interests will continue to be met despite US threats to punish companies doing business with Iran.
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