Iran may restart some nuclear activity: media reports
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – On the one-year anniversary of US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the nuclear deal, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is expected to announce Iran will restart parts of its nuclear program that were suspended under the 2015 agreement, according to Iranian media reports.
Rouhani will make the announcement live on TV and radio on May 8, one year after Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of the deal, ISNA reported.
The anticipated revival of parts of the nuclear program is covered under articles 26 and 36 of the deal (JCPOA), according to ISNA.
Article 26 states that should Europe or the US re-impose or introduce new sanctions, Iran can treat this as “grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA in whole or in part.”
Article 36 outlines the process for resolving allegations that a party was not meeting commitments under the deal, which if unresolved, a party can also use a grounds to cease fulfilling their obligations.
IRIB news confirmed that Rouhani was expected to make an announcement on May 8, citing an official who had noted that in addition to the US withdrawal from the deal, European nations had also failed to fulfill their obligations.
Iran is not expected, however, to fully pull out of the deal, according to the reports.
Withdrawing from the nuclear deal, Trump called Iran a “regime of great terror,” and his administration began re-imposing sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy, especially its oil sector. Most recently, on May 3, the State Department cracked down on Iran’s enrichment of uranium when it did not renew several waivers.
Iran has remained in compliance with the deal, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iran’s nuclear activity.
Washington on Sunday announced the US had deployed an aircraft carrier to the region “in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.”
The carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, was the same one that former US President George W. Bush hung his ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner on during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The purpose of the deployment was to “send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force,” read the statement from National Security Advisor John Bolton.
A day later, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said they were seeing an “escalation” of activity from Iran.
“We have continued to see activity that leads us to believe that there’s escalation that may be taking place, and so we’re taking all the appropriate actions, both from a security perspective as well as our ability to make sure the president has a wide range of options in the event that something should actually take place,” Pompeo told reporters at a meeting on the Arctic in Rovaniemi, Finland.
Brett McGurk, former state department official and US representative to the global coalition against ISIS, said he doubted there was a real threat. Iran knows the US will attack with ferocity if US forces or American interests come under attack, he told MSNBC on Monday.
But the complete lack of any channels of communication between Washington and Tehran does pose a risk, he said.
“Right now we have no channels of diplomacy open so the risks of a clash, the risk of an inadvertent conflict are increasing,” he said.
Barbara Slavin, the director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council think tank, said Bolton might be trying to “manufacture a crisis here.”
"I think this is manufactured by Bolton to try to justify the administration's very harsh policy toward Iran despite the fact that Iran has been complying with the nuclear deal," she told AFP.
Rouhani will make the announcement live on TV and radio on May 8, one year after Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of the deal, ISNA reported.
The anticipated revival of parts of the nuclear program is covered under articles 26 and 36 of the deal (JCPOA), according to ISNA.
Article 26 states that should Europe or the US re-impose or introduce new sanctions, Iran can treat this as “grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA in whole or in part.”
Article 36 outlines the process for resolving allegations that a party was not meeting commitments under the deal, which if unresolved, a party can also use a grounds to cease fulfilling their obligations.
IRIB news confirmed that Rouhani was expected to make an announcement on May 8, citing an official who had noted that in addition to the US withdrawal from the deal, European nations had also failed to fulfill their obligations.
Iran is not expected, however, to fully pull out of the deal, according to the reports.
Withdrawing from the nuclear deal, Trump called Iran a “regime of great terror,” and his administration began re-imposing sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy, especially its oil sector. Most recently, on May 3, the State Department cracked down on Iran’s enrichment of uranium when it did not renew several waivers.
Iran has remained in compliance with the deal, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iran’s nuclear activity.
Washington on Sunday announced the US had deployed an aircraft carrier to the region “in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.”
The carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, was the same one that former US President George W. Bush hung his ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner on during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The purpose of the deployment was to “send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force,” read the statement from National Security Advisor John Bolton.
A day later, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said they were seeing an “escalation” of activity from Iran.
“We have continued to see activity that leads us to believe that there’s escalation that may be taking place, and so we’re taking all the appropriate actions, both from a security perspective as well as our ability to make sure the president has a wide range of options in the event that something should actually take place,” Pompeo told reporters at a meeting on the Arctic in Rovaniemi, Finland.
Brett McGurk, former state department official and US representative to the global coalition against ISIS, said he doubted there was a real threat. Iran knows the US will attack with ferocity if US forces or American interests come under attack, he told MSNBC on Monday.
But the complete lack of any channels of communication between Washington and Tehran does pose a risk, he said.
“Right now we have no channels of diplomacy open so the risks of a clash, the risk of an inadvertent conflict are increasing,” he said.
Barbara Slavin, the director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council think tank, said Bolton might be trying to “manufacture a crisis here.”
"I think this is manufactured by Bolton to try to justify the administration's very harsh policy toward Iran despite the fact that Iran has been complying with the nuclear deal," she told AFP.