Iran suspends implementation of additional protocols… Significant reduction in the scope of nuclear inspection

Iran’s top leader warns that uranium can be enriched to 60%

Iran’s top leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Hamenei speaks while meeting with lawmakers in Tehran, the capital city, on the 22nd (local time). While reaffirming the principle of not possessing nuclear weapons, he declared that the enrichment rate of uranium, which can be used as a raw material for nuclear weapons, can be raised to 60%./EPA Yonhap News

Iran’s state broadcaster reported on the 22nd (local time) that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has stopped implementing the Additional Protocol, one of the NPT’s nuclear inspection-related safety measures.

The Additional Protocol is a reinforced nuclear inspection that allows inspection teams of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit Iranian nuclear facilities at random to check their activities. Iran’s pressure on the United States, which disagrees over the restoration of the Iranian nuclear agreement (JCPOA, Comprehensive Joint Action Plan), is rising.

Iran’s chief leader, Ayatollah Ali Hamenado, warned on the 22nd that “the concentration of uranium enrichment is not limited to 20%,” and that “if Iran needs it, it can enrich uranium to a concentration of 60%.”

Ayatollah Hamenei drew a line in the development of nuclear weapons, but stressed that “the parties to the nuclear agreement between the United States and Europe treated Iran with an unfair attitude,” and “we will not succumb to that pressure.”

In response, US State Department spokesman Ned Price dismissed “Hamenei’s remarks sound like intimidation,” and “I will not respond to family law and scourge.”

The U.S. adhered to the attitude that Iran must first comply with the nuclear agreement.

/ Reporter Park Seong-gyu [email protected]

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