(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 17. There are no active
surveillance cameras at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran's
Isfahan Province to record activities under the agreement between
Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the agency
said, trend reports.
The agency had to make a statement, since a previous statement
by Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman of the Atomic Energy
Organization of Iran (AEOI) caused a lot of stir in Iranian
media.
Speaking to reporters on June 15, Kamalvandi first said that
surveillance cameras have been installed at the Natanz nuclear
facility, then went on to say that the cameras were re-installed at
the Isfahan Centrifuge Production Center. The official didn't
indicate that he brought up Natanz by mistake, so his words started
to spread around.
The Natanz nuclear facility is one of the uranium enrichment
facilities and is protected by 90-meter-thick concreting. Iran
enriches uranium to 60 percent in this nuclear facility. Suspending
the provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on
Iran's nuclear program between Iran and the 5+1 group (the US, the
UK, France, Russia, China and Germany), Iran has suspended the
operation of the International Atomic Energy Agency's surveillance
cameras at Iran's nuclear facilities since 2020.
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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