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IRAN-NUCLEAR-DIPLOMACY-KHAMENEI
Khamenei: Iran to keep rolling back nuclear commitments
TEHRAN, July 16, 2019 (AFP) – Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
said Tuesday that the Islamic republic will keep rolling back its commitments
under the landmark 2015 nuclear deal.
“You did not carry out a single one (of your commitments), why do you want
us to stick to our commitments?” Khamenei said, criticising European
countries which are party to the deal.
“We have just started to decrease our commitments (in the deal) and this
process will certainly continue,” he said in a speech in Tehran partly aired
on state television.
Iran-US tensions have soared since last year when President Donald Trump
withdrew the United States from the hard-won 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed
sanctions on the Islamic republic.
Angered that its beleaguered economy is not receiving sanctions relief it
believes was promised under the deal, Iran has intensified its sensitive
uranium enrichment work.
Iran announced last week that it had enriched uranium past the 3.67
percent limit set by the nuclear deal, and it has also surpassed the 300-
kilogram cap on enriched uranium reserves.
European parties to the deal have called on Iran to return to its
commitments under the deal.
On Sunday, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran had changed its strategy
from one of “patience to that of retaliation”.
“If they decrease then we too shall decrease our commitments (in the
deal)… If they fully implement their commitments than we too shall fully
implement ours,” he said, quoted by the government website dolat.ir.
Tensions have since soared, with the US calling off air strikes against
Iran at the last minute after Tehran downed an American drone, and Washington
blaming Tehran for a series of attacks on tanker ships.
On July 4, British forces helped Gibraltar authorities detain an Iranian
tanker which US officials said had been trying to deliver oil to Syria in
violation of separate sets of EU and US sanctions — claims denied by Iran.
In his speech on Tuesday, Khamenei vowed to retaliate against the British
for the ship’s seizure.
“The vicious British… have committed piracy and stolen our ship… God
willing the Islamic republic will not leave these vicious acts unanswered,”
he said.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1845HRS