Speaking on the sidelines of the Foreign Minister Zarif’s press conference today, Behrooz Kamalvandi said that if the other parties to the Iran nuclear deal or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as it is officially known, keep failing to comply with their commitments under the JCPOA, Iran will take the third step to reduce its JCPOA-related commitments in about a month as it has been previously announced by President Rouhani and the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC).
On May 8, the anniversary of the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal (JCPOA), Iran announced that it was partially discontinuing its obligations under the JCPOA and urged nuclear deal remaining signatories – China, the European Union, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom – to shield Tehran from Washington's sanctions.
Tehran says its countermeasures fit within its rights under paragraphs 26 and 36 of the nuclear deal, and that it will reverse the measures once its demands are met.
As a first step, Iran increased its enriched uranium stockpile to a level above the 300 kilograms set by the JCPOA.
In the second step, Tehran began enriching uranium to purity rates beyond the JCPOA-limit of 3.76 percent.
Today, Kamalvandi told reporters that Iran’s actions will include suspension of commitments, which means that Iran will not put aside its commitments but it will only suspend them.
The spokesman went on to explain that Iran will resume the suspended commitments if the other parties come back to their commitments.
“If their actions are serious, there may be no need to take a third step, but if the other parties do not take serious steps, there definitely will be more steps,” Kamalvandi asserted.
He warned that if Iran has to take more steps after the third step to reduce its JCPOA commitments, there may be no JCPOA anymore.
In response to a question about the volume of enriched uranium in accordance with Iran’s second step, he said that the enriched uranium stockpiles are increasing, adding that Iran’s atomic energy organization is using full capacity of its heavy water. He noted that the reductions in Iran's commitments means that the heavy water stockpiles have surpassed 130 tons while the stockpiled enriched uranium also exceeded 300kg.
Elsewhere, he said that it is up to the Foreign Ministry to assess the conditions and to determine which steps the other parties have taken to abide by their commitments.
Kamalvandi added while the Europeans say they want to take actions to abide by their commitments, they have done nothing in practice so far.
The spokesman also said that as time passes, Iran increases the rate of uranium enrichment.
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