‘Iran to voluntarily suspend 20% enrichment’

Tehran suspends 20 percent uranium enrichment on a voluntary basis under the Geneva deal as the agreement begins going into effect on Monday January 20, says a senior Iranian nuclear official.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will voluntarily suspend 20 percent uranium enrichment today (Monday) based on the Geneva agreement,” announced Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi.

The “fabricated” standoff over Iran’s peaceful nuclear program is on course to be resolved, Salehi said, noting that the implementation of the Geneva nuclear agreement has prerequisites, and that the measures the sides are to adopt are not instantaneous.

“Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Iran two days ago to make arrangements for the implementation of the deal,” he stated.

He said the inspectors are to monitor the removal of connections between cascades of centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow sites, which will result in the suspension of 20 percent uranium enrichment.

The team of the United Nations nuclear inspectors, led by the head of the IAEA’s Iran task force Massimo Aparo, arrived in Tehran on Saturday to oversee the implementation of the Geneva deal

On January 12, Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – Russia, China, France, Britain, and the US – plus Germany finalized an agreement on ways to implement as of January 20 the interim nuclear deal that the two sides struck in the Swiss city of Geneva on November 24, 2013.

The accord is aimed at setting the stage for the full resolution of the decade-old standoff over Tehran’s nuclear energy program.