TEHERAN, January 17. /TASS/. The United States no longer has grounds to impose further sanctions on Iran, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday at a briefing dedicated to the beginning of the implementation of the nuclear deal reached by Teheran and the six world powers in Vienna in July 2015.
He said that although his country had no relations with the United States, the authorities would not hamper American companies willing to come to Iran with their cutting-edge technologies and investments. However we know that the world has a lot of other centers with advanced technologies and we can cooperate with these centers, he added.
On Saturday, the European Union announced complete lifting of sanctions and the United States - partial lifting of sanctions off Iran after Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano said in a statement that Iran had carried out all the measures required to start implementing the nuclear deal,
Iran and the P5+1 group of international mediators (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany) signed a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program on July 14, 2015 in Vienna. Under the JCPOA, Iran undertakes to reduce the number of IR-1 first-generation centrifuges at the facility in Natanz from 19,000 to 6,100, of which only 5,060 will be used to enrich uranium in a period of ten years. Apart from that, Iran undertook not to manufacture weapons-grade plutonium, to have not more than 300 kilograms of 3.67% enriched uranium in a period of 15 years, to reshape nuclear facilities and use them exclusively in peaceful purposes. Enrichment activities will be allowed only at the facility in Natanz. The Fordow facility is to be reshaped to manufacture stable isotopes for industrial and medical uses. The heavy water reactor in Arak is to be overhauled to exclude weapons-grade plutonium production. All other centrifuges are to be dismantled and stored under control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
In exchange, sanctions will be gradually removed from Iran. The arms embargo imposed by UN Security Council will be kept in place for five years, ban for supplying ballistic missile technologies to Iran - for eight years. Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will monitor nuclear facilities in Iran for the next 25 years. If any points of the agreement are violated by Iran, sanctions against the country will be renewed.
On July 20, the corresponding resolution on Iran’s nuclear program agreement was adopted by the United Nations Security Council.