Iran has ruled out having any new participants and any new talks on the nuclear deal it signed on July 14, 2015, according to multiple Iranian news media.
The JCPOA was signed between Iran and six world states — the US, Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China – and was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It was ratified in the form of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231.
The deal commits Iran to limiting its nuclear technology program in return for sanctions relief from the United States and other nations. The United States was the first to pull out, in May 2018, following numerous violations by Iran.
“The nuclear accord is a multilateral international agreement ratified by UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which is non-negotiable and parties to it are clear and unchangeable,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said, according to Iranian state media.
“We held negotiations once and the dossier of the JCPOA talks has been closed. Our stance on the JCPOA was clear and we have underlined our past stance,” Iranian presidential chief of staff Mahmoud Vaezi told the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
For Iran, he said, there is no difference between former US President Donald Trump and newly inaugurated President Joe Biden.
The remark came in response to a statement by newly-confirmed US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken last Wednesday “that if Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA the United States would do the same thing.”
If Iran returns to the deal, Blinken told reporters Washington will work to build a “longer and stronger agreement” to deal with what he said were other “deeply problematic” issues.
“Iran is out of compliance on a number of fronts and it would take some time, should it make the decision to do so, for it to come back into compliance and time for us then to assess whether it was meeting its obligations,” Blinken told reporters, according to Reuters.
The most serious violation of the nuclear deal has come in the form of high-level uranium enrichment.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said during a visit to the Fordow nuclear plant in Qom province last Thursday that the site has produced 17 kilograms of 20 percent-enriched uranium in less than a month.
The move followed the implementation of a parliamentary law on “strategic action for the lifting of sanctions and safeguarding national interests,” according to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency.
Qalibaf said Iran is “currently ahead of schedule which entails the production of at least 120 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium per year.”
The new Strategic Action Plan to Counter Sanctions Law also requires the government to store the 20 percent-enriched uranium inside the country.
He added that “all of Iran’s activities are in compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),” stressing that Tehran is “by no means bound to honor the deal when the other side has failed to do so.”
The new law also urges the installation, gas injection, enrichment and storage of nuclear materials up to an appropriate enrichment degree within a period of three months using at least 1,000 IR-2m centrifuges.