Iran says entitled to suspend commitments to nuke deal

Iranian officials said Sunday that Iran is entitled to suspend parts of its commitments to the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal when its interests are not honored by the parties of the accord, official IRNA news agency reported.

The Iranian flag waves outside of the UN building that hosts the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, office inside in Vienna, Austria, Wednesday, July 10, 2019. [File Photo: AP via IC/Ronald Zak]

The steps taken by Iran to reduce its commitments under the deal are "legitimate" and are allowed under the agreement, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday.

Iran's drop of parts of the deal's provisions is a "response to the Europeans' failure" to fulfill their promises to preserve Iran's interests in the face of U.S. withdrawal from the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Zarif said.

He made the remarks in a meeting with the visiting acting Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Cornel Feruta in Tehran on Sunday.

All Iran's recent measures pertaining to the JCPOA are enshrined by the Article 36 of the accord, he stressed.

Zarif hailed the cooperation between Iran and the IAEA and urged the UN nuclear watchdog "to observe the principles of professionalism, confidentiality, and impartiality in fulfilling its duties regarding Iran."

For his part, Feruta said the IAEA has been working to build more trust and would carry out its verification activities in a professional and impartial manner, according to Press TV.

Earlier on the day, Feruta held talks with Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, on transparency of Iranian nuclear program and the IAEA monitoring tasks with the Iranian nuclear sites.

Salehi criticized the European signatories of the 2015 agreement for what he called their "failure to honor their legal nuclear commitments" vis-a-vis Iran.

He said that the European Union was supposed to "fill the vacuum" created by the U.S. withdrawal last year from the Iranian deal, but unfortunately it has failed to keep that promise.

The deal "is no one-way street; it was supposed to be a two-way path," he was quoted as saying by Press TV.

Iran's countermeasures are "due decisions" made "in due time," Salehi added.

Feruta's visit to Tehran follows Iran's suspension of parts of its commitments to the 2015 deal. It also comes before a quarterly meeting of the IAEA's 35-country Board of Governors in Vienna on Monday.

Iran's Ambassador to the IAEA Kazem Gharib Abadi said that Feruta's meetings are part of the ongoing cooperation between Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog.

On Saturday, Iran officially announced a move to withdraw from part of its commitments to the JCPOA.

Following the announcement, Iran started up advanced centrifuges and activated 20 IR-4 centrifuges and 20 IR-6 centrifuges to boost the country's stockpile of enriched uranium.

Iran had already made two other moves to scale back its obligations to the deal to build stockpiles of nuclear fuel and enrich low-grade uranium to a higher level of purity.

Iran's steps to suspend the compliance with some provisions of the accord are retaliatory reactions to U.S. President Donald Trump's move in May 2018 which pulled Washington out of the Iranian deal and re-imposed sanctions on Iran.