The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, was quoted by Japan’s Kyodo news agency as saying that the organization has “started the preliminary work” on enforcing the terms of the deal, including reducing the number of active centrifuges.
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About 20 hardline MPs have written to President Hassan Rouhani to complain that work to dismantle centrifuges in two enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow is progressing too quickly. Iran said Monday that it has started decommissioning uranium enrichment centrifuges as required by the deal, according to Reuters.
“The martyr-nurturing nation of Iran is not at all prepared to abandon the slogan of “Death to America” under the pretext of a nuclear agreement”, 192 members of Iran’s parliament, which has a total of 290 seats, said in a statement, according to French news agency AFP.
Iran’s supreme leader says the slogan “Death to America” is not aimed at the American people, but rather American policies.
In a vote held Monday, lawmakers opted overwhelmingly to continue pushing the “Death to America” slogan chanted across the country on Fridays, after Muslim prayer services, and with special zeal every November 4th – the day Iran commemorates the beginning of the 1977 siege on the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
The leader has endorsed the deal which curbs Iran’s nuclear drive in return for a lifting of sanctions, but has repeatedly warned against USA “infiltration” of the values of Iranian society.
On Sunday, Khamenei said “America is the main part of the problem in the region, not part of the solution”, also citing support for “the Zionist regime”, reported the Times of Israel.
“The fact is that there has been no change in the U.S. objectives about the Islamic Republic of Iran, and if they (Americans) are able to destroy the Islamic Republic, they will not hesitate a moment”, the Supreme Leader explained.
“This slogan that is chanted is not a slogan against the American people. Our people respect the American people”, he insisted.
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Khamenei and hard-liners in the Iranian government remain deeply suspicious of the United States and view its policies a threat to the country.
