TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- The United States will violate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Tehran's nuclear program if it decides to prolong anti-Iran sanctions, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi said on Tuesday.
Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump said that Iran was not complying with the "spirit” of the JCPOA and would soon receive a response from the United States. He also directed a National Security Council-led interagency review of whether the Iranian nuclear deal befits U.S. interests.
"The United States will be explicitly violating a nuclear deal with Iran and five other countries if it refuses to extend the suspension of American nuclear-related sanctions against the Islamic Republic on the due date," Salehi said.
He also noted that Iran had achieved significant progress in the nuclear industry.
"If the nuclear industry maintains its current pace of progress, the country’s nuclear organization would attain budgetary self-reliance over the next five or six years," Salehi said.
In July 2015, Iran and the P5+1 countries — the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom plus Germany – signed an agreement ensuring the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program in return for the gradual lifting of sanctions against Tehran. The deal came into force on January 16, 2016, after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that Iran was ready to implement the program to reduce its nuclear potential.
However, the United States imposed new sanctions against Iran in February 2017 after Tehran carried out a medium-range ballistic missile test in late January.
Salehi said many of the other parties to the deal have declared that they would not be supporting unilateral U.S. action concerning the multilateral deal.
Delegations from the parties to the JCPOA are in Vienna for a regular meeting on the deal. On Tuesday, the parties were holding the seventh meeting of the Iran-P5+1 Joint Commission, which reviews progress on the deal and potential concerns by individual parties.
Salehi said the EU had allocated $5 million for the enhancement of nuclear safety in Iran.
He said the country had reached an agreement with Russia on bilateral cooperation in building two nuclear reactors in Iran and added that talks were also to be held with China on the construction of two 100-megawatt power stations in Iran.
Two nuclear plants, he said, would be starting their operations on the ground, adding that a maximum of 10,000 staff members would be recruited in the facilities.
Salehi also said that the potential exports of electricity produced at the 1000-megawatt Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, which is located in Iran’s south, would award the country some $700 million annually.
If the nuclear industry maintains its current pace of progress, the country’s nuclear organization would attain budgetary self-reliance over the next five or six years, he said.