President Rouhani: Iran to Continue Enrichment


President Rouhani: Iran to Continue Enrichment

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani describes enrichment as the nation’s redline, saying that Iran would never stop to enrich uranium on its soil.

President Rouhani said in an live interview on television that Iran has a right to enrichment and will never surrender this right.

“Enrichment, which is one part of our nuclear right, will continue, it is continuing today and it will continue tomorrow and our enrichment will never stop and this is our redline,” Rouhani said during the address to mark his 100th day in office.

He pointed to the recent agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany), and said that this agreement has broken the structure of sanctions.

Rouhani said  that his government wants to end sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council and individual countries, adding that those enemies that tried to spread Iranophobia across the world are isolated more than ever.

“Many were trying to isolate Iran, but who is isolated today? Our enemies are in fact isolated,” Rouhani added.

Iran and the G5+1 countries (also known as the P5+1 in diplomatic shorthand) signed a six-month deal on Tehran’s nuclear program after three rounds of intensive talks in the Swiss city of Geneva on November 24.

According to the deal, Iran will stop enriching uranium beyond 5% and neutralize its stockpile of uranium enriched beyond this point. It will also allow greater access to inspectors including daily access at Natanz and Fordow, two of Iran's key nuclear sites, while agreeing to stop construction work at Arak heavy-water research reactor.

In return, there will be no new nuclear-related sanctions for six months, and some of the sanctions, including those on trade of precious metals, on Iran's car-making sector and its petrochemical exports will be suspended during the period - which can be extended by mutual agreement.

Some of Iran's frozen assets will be transferred in installments, while there will be less restrictions on the sale of crude oil in this period and the revenues from the sale of oil will not be subject to the sanctions regime.

The agreement runs for six months while negotiations continue on a comprehensive final deal. There is little doubt, however, that the main sticking point is Iran’s insistence that it has a right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.

Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said Iran's enrichment right has no need to be recognized because it is an indivisible right based on the NPT.

Article 4 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty guarantees countries the right to develop the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 

It stipulates that nothing in this treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the parties to the treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

 

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