Iran's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Majid Takht Ravanchi rejected in a letter the recent report by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on the Security Council Resolution 2231 that supports the nuclear deal reached with major powers.
Guterres urged Iran to address concerns raised about its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and return to “full implementation” of its 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPAO).
In the report, obtained by The Associated Press earlier in December, the UN chief expressed regret that the US administration withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions against Tehran, and at Iran’s 2019 decision to violate limits in the deal including on centrifuges and enriching uranium.
However, in reaction to the report, Ravanchi said Iran’s reduction of its nuclear commitments was a result of the other parties’ violation of the deal.
He also said that INSTEX - the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges - must prove its efficiency after two years.
INSTEX was established by Europe two years ago as a mechanism to facilitate legitimate trade with Iran.
Ravanchi further called on Guterres and the UN Security Council to "explicitly" condemn the assassinations of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.
Remarkably, Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is more than 2.4 tonnes, 12 times the cap set by the deal.
Iran has been enriching uranium up to 4.5% purity, above the deal’s 3.67% limit though below the 20% it achieved before the deal.
Iran is enriching uranium in places where it is not allowed under the deal, such as at Fordow, a site dug into a mountain.
More recently it has started enriching with advanced centrifuges at its underground plant at Natanz, where the deal says it can use only first-generation IR-1 machines.
