Iran has pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal following the United States’ killing of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, according to CBS news.
Iran partially withdrew from the deal in 2019 after the United States pulled out of the deal a year earlier, imposing new sanctions on Iran. President Hassan Rouhani said then that Iran would “reduce its commitments” to the deal without fully withdrawing.
Under the agreement, Iran was permitted to stockpile limited amounts of enriched uranium and heavy water produced in that process, exporting any excess. Doing so has become extremely difficult after the US revoked waivers that allowed Iran to export those excess stockpiles, effectively forcing Iran to halt enrichment or ignore the limits.
The United States pulled out of the Obama-era deal in May 2018. Trump initiated new sanctions on Iran, saying from the White House, “It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and cotton structure of the current agreement. The Iran deal is defective at its core. If we do nothing we know exactly what will happen.”
France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China remained in the deal after the United States’ withdrawal.
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