US admits Iran honors its obligations in nuclear deal

EghtesadOnline: A senior US State Department official has verified Iran’s commitment to its nuclear obligations.

News ID: ۷۶۹۳۳۰

10 September 2016

In a panel discussion on Friday, deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran Chris Backemeyer said, “Iran is living up to the commitments it made as part of a nuclear agreement reached with six world powers in 2015.”

He made the remarks in an Atlantic Council forum on Iran sanctions, reports IRNA.

“On the nuclear side, so far, Iran has lived up to its commitments, and that’s a good thing,” he said.

According to the Forum’s website, “Backemeyer participated in a panel discussion at the Atlantic Council. He was joined on the panel by David Mortlock, a nonresident senior fellow in the Council’s Global Energy Center, and Barbara Slavin, acting director of the Council’s Future of Iran Initiative. Yeganeh Torbati, a reporter with Reuters, moderated the discussion.”

Backemeyer’s comments are in sync with recent findings by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA’s confidential report, which was reported by Reuters, found: “Throughout the reporting period, Iran had no more than 130 metric tons of heavy water...Iran’s total enriched uranium (up to 3.67 percent purity) stockpile did not exceed 300 kg,” citing the nuclear deal’s limits on heavy water and enriched uranium,” the website added.

Beckmeyer who is the Principal Deputy Coordinator for Sanctions Policy in the US Department of State also said Iran has fulfilled their commitments to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

In a report on Thursday, The International Atomic Energy Agency declared that Iran's nuclear materials production has been in line with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and its agreement with the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France and Britain plus Germany).

The Director General of the nuclear watchdog Yukiya Amano, in one of his shortest reports ever, said that Iran has not carried out activities related to reprocessing at the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) and the Molybdenum, Iodine and Xenon Radioisotope Production (MIX) Facility or at any of the other facilities it has declared to the IAEA.

Backemeyer also claimed that the US has lived up to its commitments, adding that 'the nuclear deal is working as we intended to'.