TEHRAN, November 5. /TASS/. Iran has handed over a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announcing that on November 6 it will start to inject gas into centrifuges at the nuclear facility in Fordow, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA Kazem Gharib-Abadi said on Tuesday.

"After the statement and the decree of Iranian President [Hassan Rouhani], a letter has been handed over to the IAEA on the start of injection with gas at the Fordow facility [centrifuges]," the ISNA agency quotes him as saying. The Iranian envoy added that Tehran had asked the IAEA to send its specialists to Fordow to visit the facility at a specified time.

On November 5, the Iranian president announced that the next stage of Tehran reducing its obligations under the nuclear deal would begin on November 6 with the launch of centrifuges at a nuclear facility in Fordow.

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 imposed previous sanctions on Iran and introduced new ones.

On May 8, 2019, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani reported 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 stated 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, Iran announced the third step to scale down commitments under the nuclear deal, abandoning restrictions on nuclear research. Tehran explained the move by saying that the European JCPOA signatories had failed to fully comply with their obligations.