It doesn’t matter to Iran whether the United States returns to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the lifting of sanctions matters, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Friday.
“We do not insist that (the United States) return to the JCPOA, we are not in a hurry with this. It is not our business whether the United States will return to the JCPOA. Our demand is the lifting of sanctions. This is a right received by the Iranian people”, – the leader said during TV appearances, adding that Washington’s return to the nuclear deal would only make sense if the sanctions were lifted.
According to him, the United States and European countries are obliged to provide Iran with this right, while Tehran does not make sense to fulfill its obligations in accordance with the agreement if the parties do not comply with the provisions of the nuclear deal.
In this regard, Khamenei reiterated that Iran will return to the execution of the nuclear deal as soon as other countries participating in the agreement do the same.
Earlier, Tehran began producing highly enriched uranium due to the law “Strategic measure to lift sanctions”, which provides for the production of uranium with an enrichment level of 20% or more and is designed to ensure Iran’s interests in accordance with the nuclear deal. In addition, Iran has begun installing and assembling new generation IR-2M and IR-6 centrifuges outside the deal.
The nuclear deal assumes uranium enrichment at the level of 3.67% and the use of IR-1 centrifuges, however, a year ago Iran abandoned restrictions on this issue in light of violations of the nuclear deal by other parties and the US withdrawal from it, formally enriching uranium to more than 4% and starting the development of more advanced centrifuges for uranium enrichment.