Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is set to announce on Wednesday Tehran's new nuclear activities in a letter to the remaining five signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal; UK, France, Germany, Russia and China.
Meanwhile, several members of the Iranian parliament have insisted that Tehran "will not withdraw from the NPT (The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons), and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)”, or Tehran nuclear deal with world powers."
A year ago, on May 8, 2018, President Donald Trump announced that Washington was dropping JCPOA and reimposing tight sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Earlier, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had warned that should President Trump tear up JCPOA, he would burn it.
Nevertheless, Tehran decided to keep its commitment to JCPOA, along with the deal’s remaining five world powers.
Iran's state-run IRIB news agency reported on May 6 that Tehran would resume parts of its halted nuclear activities in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and its ever increasing pressures on Iran, but asserted that Tehran does not plan to withdraw from JCPOA.
Furthermore, it was reported that president Rouhani is due to speak publicly about Iran's new position on Wednesday.
However, ahead of Rouhani's speech, the chairman of Majles (Iranian parliament) powerful National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh said on Tuesday, May 7, Tehran will carry on its policy in the framework of the NPT and JCPOA, but will halt any of its excessive commitments.
Speaking to the state-run Iran Students News Agency (ISNA), Falahatpisheh insisted, "There is no reason for Iran to remain loyal to any commitment outside the NPT and JCPOA," adding, "these commitments should rather be modified."
Based on JCPOA, Iran has voluntarily accepted to respect the NPT's Additional Protocol.
According to the Additional Protocol, the inspectors of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), are allowed to visit Iran's nuclear facilities without prior notice and at any time they wish.
Furthermore, long before President Trump's decision to drop JCPOA, the head of Iran Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO), Ali Akbar Salehi, had threatened in 2017 that should the U.S. withdraw from the agreement, Tehran would halt its commitment to the Additional Protocol.
In the meantime, Iranian media report that Tehran has decided to resume its nuclear activities in the framework of Articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA while remaining committed to the agreement.
In his letter to the remaining parties to the JCPOA, according to Iranian news agencies, President Rouhani will remind his counterparts that since the other parties had not fulfilled their commitments, Iran has been left with no option other than reducing its obligations.
Rouhani's letter is expected to have a political content, the local news outlets say, adding that the Islamic Republic Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, will expand on the legal and technical aspects of the case in a letter to the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini.
The content of both letters will be kept confidential as JCPOA Joint Commission's documents, IRNA reports.
Rouhani's letter, according to reports, is scheduled to be delivered to the embassy of the other countries in Tehran by the Islamic Republic's Deputy Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi.
Amid all these speculations, the three European countries have warned Tehran that it must continue to "comply with all aspects of the deal," especially the elements relating to nuclear activity.
A French diplomatic source told Reuters that if Iran withdraws from the deal, then Europe would reimpose sanctions on the country.
"We do not want Tehran to announce tomorrow actions that would violate the nuclear agreement, because in this case we Europeans would be obliged to reimpose sanctions as per the terms of the agreement," the source said. "We don't want that, and we hope that the Iranians will not make this decision."