MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/. Tehran is reducing its commitments to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in order to launch a diplomatic mechanism to save the nuclear deal, Spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Behrouz Kamalvandi said on Monday.

"We are taking these steps not out of stubbornness but in order to give a chance to diplomacy," he said, as cited by Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). According to Kamalvandi, "other participants in the deal should resume compliance."

The Iranian official also pointed out that "if the Europeans and the Americans fail to fulfill the deal’s requirements, Iran will continue to reduce its commitments, returning to the level of five years ago" before the deal had been signed. "A thing to remember is that Tehran abided by all of the JCPOA provisions, and IAEA reports confirm it," Kamalvandi emphasized.

Iran nuclear deal issue

In 2015, Iran and six major powers (five member states of the United Nations Security Council — Russia, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China and Germany) agreed on the final Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which particularly stipulated the removal of sanctions imposed on Tehran over its nuclear program.

On May 8, 2018, US President Donald Trump announced Washington’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. He said that old sanctions on Iran would be restored and new ones would be introduced in case Tehran attempted to pursue its nuclear ambitions. The first batch of new US sanctions on Iran took effect on August 7 and the second batch became effective on November 5. In contrast, Great Britain, Germany and France called on other participants in the deal to continue its execution. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow would seek to maintain the agreement.

On May 8, 2019, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pledged that Tehran was reducing its commitments under the JCPOA. He pointed out that the other signatories, primarily EU countries, had failed to fulfill their economic obligations under the deal, making it irrelevant. Rouhani said they had two months to return to compliance. The deadline expired on July 7. On July 8, Spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Behrouz Kamalvandi said that Tehran had exceeded the uranium enrichment level of 4.5%.