Rouhani: We will enrich as much as we need
Hassan Rouhani announced at a cabinet meeting that “empty INSTEX” is of no use to Iran. Rouhani stressed that if the remaining parties to the JCPOA do not comply, Iran will return the Arak reactor to its previous conditions.
The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran said in a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that the country will decide on the level of uranium enrichment in line with its needs. Regarding the enrichment percentage, Hassan Rouhani also said: “We will set aside this commitment [3.7 percent enrichment] and increase enrichment to whatever level we want and need.” Rouhani says his country can return to the pre-JCPOA conditions “in an hour.”
Tehran has criticized the parties to the JCPOA and has withdrawn from some of its commitments under the agreement. Accordingly, its stockpile of enriched uranium has exceeded the amount specified in the JCPOA.
The Islamic Republic has also announced that if the country's economic interests are not secured within the framework of the JCPOA, the next step will be to return the Arak heavy water reactor to its previous status. Hassan Rouhani threatened in his speech today that if the parties to the JCPOA do not fulfill their commitments under the JCPOA by July 6, the Arak reactor's activities will return to their previous conditions. July 6 is the end of the two-month deadline that Iran set for European countries on the anniversary of the US withdrawal from the JCPOA.
Hassan Rouhani also said today: “An empty INSTEX is of no use to us.” The Khabar Online website quoted Rouhani as saying that the INSTEX issue is “a showy act” and that INSTEX “can be acceptable to some extent if there is money involved.”
Rouhani added: "You have a mechanism without money; what is its feature? It's like a bank, but there is no money in it, and it's just called a bank. Now, you didn't call it a bank and said it was a fund. The same thing happens if you put oil money in it and buy our oil and it becomes active, although what you have done so far is still flawed, but it can be ignored."
Source: DW
