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Iran activates more uranium enrichment centrifuges

The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization noted, that the country’s low-enriched uranium production rose by 10 times in the past two months

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran's director Ali Akbar Salehi EPA-EFE/FLORIAN WIESER

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran's director Ali Akbar Salehi

© EPA-EFE/FLORIAN WIESER

MOSCOW, November 4. /TASS/. Tehran has activated 30 more uranium enrichment centrifuges, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi announced on Monday.

According to him, the country’s low-enriched uranium production rose by 10 times in the past two months.

Salehi said that Iran had no plans to take such steps but Washington’s "erroneous policy" had made Tehran do it.

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 and 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 nuclear deal. Washington re-imposed previous sanctions on Iran and introduced new ones.

On May 8, 2019, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Tehran was reducing its commitments under the JCPOA. He pointed out that the other signatories 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 3.67%. Iran pointed out that it would continue to reduce commitments every 60 days unless other participants restored compliance.

On September 6, Tehran announced the third step to scale down commitments under the nuclear deal, abandoning restrictions on nuclear research. A while ago, Tehran said it was working on measures within the fourth step to reduce its commitments under the JCPOA.

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