(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 31. Since the JCPOA is
almost dead anyway, Iran may take steps within a new nuclear
program-related plan, Iranian political analyst Mehdi Motahharnia
said, trend reports.
Without revealing any details of the 'new plan', the analyst
said there's a framework being developed within the new
strategy.
Motahharnia added that it is necessary to wait whether everyone
in Iran will agree on the new format. He said that if Iran sticks
to this new plan, it will be able to improve its economic
conditions in a few months and benefit from its positive
psychological effect.
However, the analyst agrees that the new plan may backfire in a
sense that additional sanctions may follow, and this would result
in Iran losing all the gained benefits. According to him, the
current US administration does not intend to ease sanctions and
restrictions on Tehran, even with bringing Iran back to the
JCPOA.
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.
On May 8, 2018, the US announced its withdrawal from the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the 5+1 group
(Russia, China, the UK, France, the US, and Germany), and imposed
new sanctions against Iran as of November 2018.
Over the past period, the sanctions affected Iranian oil
exports, more than 700 banks, companies, and individuals. The
sanctions have resulted in the freezing of Iranian assets
abroad.
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