TEHRAN - Ali Akbar Salehi, the director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), announced on Sunday that Iran is currently spinning more centrifuges at the Fordow nuclear facility than the number permitted under a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. 

Under the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran is unauthorized to enrich uranium at Fordow. 

However, Iran resumed enriching uranium there in response to U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA under a policy of gradually reducing its commitments under the deal in five phases.  

“We have committed in the JCPOA not to spin these 1,044 centrifuges [at the Fordow plant]. But according to [the policy of] reducing JCPOA commitments we enrich [uranium] as needed and we will stockpile the enriched materials,” Salehi, a nuclear physicist, told the Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency (ICANA). 

He said, “The fourth phase of the policy of reducing JCPOA commitments by the Islamic Republic of Iran has been fully implemented. Accordingly, we have activated a wing at Fordow.”

Salehi was responding to remarks by lawmakers criticizing the AEOI over not implementing the fourth phase of reducing Iran’s nuclear commitments. 

“1,044 centrifuges are enriching uranium at Fordow in accordance with the policies of reducing the JCPOA commitments. So we have done our part completely,” the AEOI director pointed out. 

SKM/PA