Reuters, London :
Iran announced on Wednesday it was scaling back curbs to its nuclear program under a 2015 deal with world powers, and threatened to do more-including enriching uranium to a higher level-if countries did not shield it from U.S. sanctions.
A year after Washington pulled out of the nuclear deal with Iran, President Hassan Rouhani unveiled measures that do not appear to violate the deal’s terms yet, but could do so in the future if Iran were to persist on the course he set out.
Rouhani said Tehran would halt a program to sell excess enriched uranium and heavy water to other countries, an arrangement used under the nuclear deal to keep its own stockpiles below permitted caps.
And he threatened that in 60 days Iran would resume enrichment of uranium beyond the low level permitted under the deal, unless the five other powers signed up to it find a way to protect Iran’s oil and banking industries from U.S. sanctions.
“If the five countries came to the negotiating table and we reached an agreement, and if they could protect our interests in the oil and banking sectors, we will go back to square one,” Rouhani said.
“The Iranian people and the world should know that today is not the end of the JCPOA,” he said, using the acronym for the nuclear deal. “These are actions in line with the JCPOA.”
