Tasnim – A top adviser to the Iranian president highlighted the country’s recent advances in the field of peaceful nuclear technology and said it will astonish the Western nations in the near future.

Speaking to Tasnim, Hesamoddin Ashna pointed to Iran’s recent steps in reducing its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and said that “the third step” has multiple layers.

“When it is said that there will be no limitations on research and development, the boundaries of science and technology in this area will no longer hold us back and we will move towards the cutting-edge of science,” he said.

“So the West should expect that the developments in Iran’s nuclear knowledge will astound it in the near future,” the adviser went on to say.

Earlier this month, Spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz Kamalvandi announced details of the country’s “third step” in reducing commitments under the JCPOA.

He said the reduction of JCPOA commitments related to research and development will facilitate the enrichment of uranium up to a level of 1,000,000 SWU.

Back in July, Iran had declared the second step to reduce 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 nuclear deal but to save the accord by creating a balance in the commitments.

Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) on July 14, 2015, reached a conclusion over the text of the JCPOA.

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 the US policies and its eventual withdrawal from the deal.

On May 8, 2018, US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the nuclear accord.

Following the US withdrawal, Iran and the remaining parties launched talks to save the deal.

However, the EU’s failure to ensure Iran’s economic interests forced Tehran to stop honoring certain commitments, including an unlimited rise in the stockpile of enriched uranium.

Kamalvandi recently said that the country’s enriched uranium stockpile has reached 360 to 370 kilograms.