The Iranian foreign minister said Tuesday that the country’s move to inject gas into hundreds of new centrifuges was a response to US fresh sanctions against Iran’s oil trade.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks in an address to reporters on the sidelines of a ceremony, reported the official news agency IRNA.
He warned the United States against the idea that it could extract concessions from Iran in the negotiations.
On Monday, the US imposed sanctions on the firms that Washington claimed have helped Iran sell oil and petrochemical products.
Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said the organization has been ordered to launch and inject gas into hundreds of new centrifuges, including the IR-1 machines and advanced IR-6 ones.
Amir-Abdollahian noted that the new sanctions came at a time when relative parties are discussing the timing of holding a new round of negotiations to revive the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal.
The Iranian top diplomat described such actions by Washington as “illogical” and an indication of a mania for imposing “ineffective” sanctions.
Iran is serious about reaching a robust agreement, but if Washington seeks to continue the same path, the Islamic republic’s hands will in no way be tied, he added.
Iran signed the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with world powers in July 2015, agreeing to curb its nuclear program in return for the removal of sanctions. However, former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the agreement in May 2018 and reimposed unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting the latter to drop some of its commitments under the pact.
The talks on reviving the JCPOA began in April 2021 in the Austrian capital of Vienna but were suspended in March this year because of political differences between Tehran and Washington.
After a three-month pause, the talks resumed indirectly between Iran and the U.S. in late June in Qatar’s capital of Doha, but again failed to settle the differences.
