Iran’s top leader, Ayatollah Sayed Ali Hamenei, attends a video conference held in the capital city of Tehran on the 14th of the first day of Ramadan, the Islamic fasting holy month. Tehran=AP Yonhap News
Iran, which began negotiations on the restoration of nuclear agreements (JCPOA, Comprehensive Joint Action Plan) with the United States and the West, indicated its willingness to produce highly enriched nuclear materials for nuclear weapons. The top leader dismissed the proposal to free some of the money tied up by sanctions, saying, “It is not worth considering.”
According to Iran’s state-run Press TV on the 14th (local time), the country’s top leader, Ayatollah Sayed Ali Hamenei, said in a TV speech on the first day of Ramadan on the Islamic Fasting Holy Month, “The United States is not trying to accept the truth in negotiations and They recognize Iran’s rights, but they want to follow US policy. Their proposals are usually arrogant and humiliating and not worth considering.”
It has also reaffirmed its existing position that it will fulfill its obligation to restrict nuclear development only when sanctions are lifted by the West. Immediately after the TV speech, the official Twitter account said, “We have already declared Iran’s policy. We must remove the sanctions first and confirm them so that we will keep our promises.”
Currently, Iran has foreshadowed the enrichment of uranium at a concentration of 60%. According to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, Iranian President Hassan Rohany attended a ministerial meeting that day. 1 He said he would replace the centrifuge with a high-performance improved IR-6 and start enriching uranium at 60% concentration. Israel is the dominant behind the attack on the Natanz facility.
In this regard, Iran’s Ambassador to the IAEA, Kerzem Garib Abadi, tweeted, “At the Natanz nuclear facility, two additional cascades consisting of IR-4ㆍIR-6 centrifuges (connected in multiple stages) were installed and uranium enriched at a concentration of 60%. “The process to improve the uranium enrichment capacity has already begun, and we expect to start enriching it next week.”
According to the agreement of JCPOA, the high-performance centrifuges IR-4 and IR-6 can only be operated for testing purposes, and the centrifuges that Iran can use to enrich uranium are IR-1 type 6,104 units.
Three European countries (E3), including the UK, France and Germany, which signed the agreement in 2015, expressed “serious concerns” in a joint statement released on the same day in the name of a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They pointed out that “highly enriched uranium production is an important step in the production of nuclear weapons,” and that Iran does not need this level of uranium enrichment for civilian use. He added, “It is particularly regrettable that Iran’s announcement came from a situation where all signatories and the United States began to discuss finding a rapid diplomatic solution for the restoration of the nuclear agreement.”
In the first round of negotiations on the 6th~9th, if Iran stops enriching uranium at a concentration of 20%, a proposal from the United States to lift the frozen assets worth $1 billion (1.0 trillion won) in return was made, but Iran did not accept it. Delivered. Joe Biden’s U.S. administration is pushing for a return to the nuclear agreement, which was withdrawn from the former administration of Donald Trump in 2018. The meeting of the participating countries to restore the agreement is scheduled to resume on the 15th.
Kwon Gyeong-seong reporter [email protected]
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