General Salami: JCPOA No More Necessary

Date: 13 January 2021 - 21:59

News ID: ۸۶۵۹۵

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- The Join Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is no more necessary whether or not the next U.S. administration returns to the nuclear deal, chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Hussein Salami said on Wednesday.
The IRGC commander said the enemies of Iran have been entangled in many troubles in such a way that even American think tanks admit that the U.S. is falling apart from inside.
"The situation has become such that Iran is in no need of the JCPOA, whether or not the U.S. rejoins the deal,” he added.
The general said it is a divine promise that the enemies’ hostile plots would  return to themselves.
Highlighting the failure of the U.S. policy of maximum pressure on Iran, the general derided outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump as a "depressed and exhausted man” whose departure is everybody awaiting.
Iran has started research on uranium metal-based fuel for its research reactor in Tehran, its envoy to the UN atomic agency said on Wednesday.
"R&D activities related to the design of an improved type of fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor started. Natural uranium will be used to produce uranium metal in the first stage,” Kazem Gharibabadi said on Twitter.
He added that Iran has given design information about its research to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency has conducted an inspection, he said.
In December, Iran’s parliament passed a law that obliges the government to harden its nuclear stance, including inauguration of the metallic uranium factory in Isfahan within five months.
It also says if U.S. sanctions are not eased by Feb. 21, Tehran will step up uranium enrichment and will end the sweeping inspection powers given to the IAEA by the nuclear deal, limiting inspections to declared nuclear sites only.
Iran resumed enriching uranium to 20% fissile strength at its underground Fordow nuclear plant earlier this month.
Tehran began scaling back its compliance with the 2015 accord in 2019 in a step-by-step response to President Donald Trump’s pullout in 2018 and his reimposition of U.S. sanctions that had been rescinded under the deal, beside the Europeans’ failure to support Iran.