TEHRAN – Iran began to inject uranium gas into advanced centrifuge machines to prove its determination to protect the Iranian nation’s interests and have the sanctions terminated following new sanctions imposed by the United States, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said Wednesday.
Muhammad Eslami stressed that all of Iran’s nuclear activities conform with the Safeguards Agreement and the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Iran has activated the new centrifuges to prove that it is determined to have the sanctions lifted and safeguard the interests of the Iranian nation, he added.
The senior nuclear official also said the UN nuclear agency’s surveillance cameras recording data beyond the Safeguards Agreement in Iran were turned off because they were supposed to monitor limitations on Iran’s nuclear program under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“When the other party has failed to honor the JCPOA, there is no reason for Iran to remain unilaterally committed to something like an obsolete deal,” Eslami stated.
Iran, he said, will not allow those cameras to operate as long as the other side repeats accusations against Tehran and refrains from fulfilling its commitments.
On Monday, U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on a total of six companies in Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over claims that they had helped Iran sell tens of millions of dollars in oil and petrochemical products to East Asian countries.
Later in the day, Iran declared that it had begun to feed gas into hundreds of advanced IR-1 and IR-6 machines after notifying the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).