With Ali Shamkhani Gone, Iran May Step Away From JCPOA


(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 25. The change of the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council may cause the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Iran to be archived soon, a former member of Iranian parliament Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh said, trend reports.

Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani resigned and was replaced by Ali Akbar Ahmadian by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

According to Falahatpisheh, this change means that many issues related to the country's foreign policy have been transferred from the Supreme National Security Council to the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This also means that main programs such as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action have been sent to the archive.

Falahatpisheh stressed that the JCPOA was one of the issues worked on in close coordination between the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Supreme National Security Council.

The former MP expressed hope that a group of professional experts on Iran's nuclear program will be organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran.

In January 2016, JCPOA was launched between Iran and the P5+1 group (US, Russia, China, UK, France, and Germany) in connection with Iran's nuclear program. In May 2018, the US announced its withdrawal from the deal and imposed sanctions on Iran in November of the same year. To preserve the agreements reached as part of the JCPOA, the European signatories of the deal started in January 2019 that a financial mechanism for maintaining trade with Iran called INSTEX was formed.

On May 8, 2019, Iran announced that it had ceased fulfilling its commitments regarding the sale of over 300 kilograms of uranium, as stated in the deal, basing its decision on the other signatories that have not fulfilled their obligations. On July 7, Iran announced that it will not be fulfilling its commitments regarding the enrichment of uranium at 3.67 percent and the reconstruction of the Arak Heavy Water Reactor Facility as stated in the deal.

Iran announced that it will enrich uranium using next-generation centrifuges and will not mix it with the enriched uranium residues as part of the third step of reducing commitments in JCPOA on Sept.5. On Nov. 5, 2019, Iran announced that it took the fourth step in connection with reducing its commitments to the nuclear agreement. So, uranium gas is being pumped to the centrifuges at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant.

On Jan.2020, Iran took the last fifth step in reducing the number of its commitments within JCPOA.

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