The United States is putting pressure on Tehran not to produce heavy water, but American companies are buying it from Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Saturday.
"The United States is so eager to put pressure on us not to produce heavy water, but in the end, we see that American companies are buying Iran’s heavy water," Amirabdollahian said at Tehran University, as quoted by the IRNA news agency.
The foreign minister also said, citing an unnamed Western official, that testing carried out in laboratories showed that "Iran produces the highest quality heavy water in the world."
Iran today is not on the path to signing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Amirabdollahian noted, adding, however, that he does not exclude this agreement as an option.
In 2015, Iran signed the JCPOA with China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, with the involvement of the European Union. The deal committed Iran to scaling back its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. The US withdrew from the deal in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump, but resumed talks with Iran in a bid to revive the deal under incumbent President Joe Biden. Their talks in Vienna are now considered frozen.