Spokesman for Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), announced that the new level of nuclear enrichment stands at 4.5 percent.

Iran Press/Iran news: Behrouz Kamalvandi said on Monday that increasing the level of uranium enrichment to 20 percent purity would be a viable option for Iran in the third incremental step to progressively reduce Iran's commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The current level of uranium enrichment is fulfilling Iran’s needs for fuel necessary for running the reactors of nuclear power plants, Kamalvandi noted, Iran Press reported.

With regards to other plans that Iran could carry out in the third phase of scaling down its JCPOA undertakings, Kamalvandi pointed to the possible employment of IR-2 and IR-2M centrifuge machines or a rise in the number of active centrifuges.  

“There are a lot of options for the next step in reducing the JCPOA commitments, but their implementation should be economically and technically feasible,” the spokesman added.

Kamalvandi also made it clear that the level of uranium enrichment in Iran has already exceeded the 3.67 percent limit.

Iran on Sunday declared the second step in reduction of its commitments by ramping up the level of uranium enrichment to over 3.67 percent.

Iran maintains that the new measures are not designed to harm the JCPOA, but to save the accord by creating a balance in the commitments.

Iran and the 5+1 Group (Russia, China, US, Britain, France, and Germany) signed a landmark nuclear accord in July 2015.

The accord took effect in January 2016 and was supposed to terminate all nuclear-related sanctions against Iran all at once, but its implementation was hampered by US policies and its eventual withdrawal from the nuclear deal.

On 8 May 2018, US President Donald Trump abruptly and unilaterally withdrew the US from the nuclear accord.

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