By Trend

As a result of a decrease in the number of liabilities, Iran is able to produce over 130 tons of heavy water, chairman of the nuclear committee of the Iranian parliament Mohammad Ebrahim Rezaei said.

“There is also an opportunity to store uranium products in the country,” Rezaei added, Trend reports referring to the Iranian parliament’s website.

“The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was created in such a way that the Arak Heavy Water Reactor Facility would cease to operate over time because on one hand over 130 tons were banned to be produced,” the chairman added.

“On the other hand, we were not allowed to sell the products,” the chairman said.

In January 2016, JCPOA was launched between Iran and the P5+1 group (US, Russia, China, UK, France and Germany) in connection with Iran's nuclear program. In May 2018, the US announced its withdrawal from the deal and imposed sanctions against Iran in November of the same year. In order to preserve the agreements reached as part of the JCPOA, the European signatories of the deal stated in January 2019 that a financial mechanism for maintaining trade with Iran called INSTEX was formed.

On May 8, 2019, Iran announced that it had ceased fulfilling its commitments regarding the sale of over 300 kilograms of uranium, as stated in the deal, basing its decision on the other signatories having not fulfilled their obligations. On July 7, Iran announced that it will not be fulfilling its commitments regarding the enrichment of uranium at 3.67 percent and the reconstruction of the Arak Heavy Water Reactor Facility as stated in the deal.

On Sept. 5, Iran announced that it will enrich uranium using next-generation centrifuges and will not mix it with the enriched uranium residues as part of the third step of reducing commitments in JCPOA, and stated that a further step will be taken in two months, should the other signatories not fulfill their commitments.

On Nov. 6, Iran put the 2,800 kg cylinder including 2,000 kg uranium hexafluoride (UF6) in Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant as part of the fourth step of reducing commitments to JCPOA.