Iran FM: Tehran Feeding Gas into New Centrifuges as Countermeasure to Fresh US Sanctions

By Staff, Agencies

Iran’s foreign minister says the recent decision to feed gas into cascades of new centrifuges was a response to the United States’ insane obsession with imposing new sanctions against the country.

Hossein Amir Abdollahian said in remarks on Tuesday that the “irrational” and “insane” sanctions the US has slapped on his country will not have an adverse effect on Iran’s progress.

“I would like to point out that in response to this American action, Iran started feeding gas into hundreds of new generation centrifuges last night,” he said.

The top Iranian diplomat made it clear that the Americans will not gain any concessions in the negotiations that aim to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement by imposing new sanctions.

“They need to put aside their excessive demands,” he said. “We are people of logic and dialogue and we are serious about reaching a strong agreement, but if the Americans want to continue on this path, our hands will not be tied.”

Iran and the other parties to the nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA], have been engaged in sporadic rounds of talks since last April to revive the JCPOA by bringing the US back into the deal.

The current crisis over Iran’s nuclear program was created in May 2018, when former US president Donald Trump pulled the US out of the JCPOA and imposed tough economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic under what he called the “maximum pressure” policy.

While the Joe Biden administration agrees that the policy has failed dismally, it has not taken any tangible steps to deliver on its promise of repealing the policy, but rather, it has occasionally imposed new sanctions on Iran. 

On Monday, US Treasury and State Department imposed sanctions on a total of six companies, four based in Hong Kong, one in Singapore, and one in the United Arab Emirates [UAE]. The US said the firms have helped Iran sell tens of millions of dollars in oil and petrochemical products to East Asian countries.

Later in the day, Iran said it was beginning to feed gas into hundreds of advanced IR-1 and IR-6 machines after notifying the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA].