“We will take the fourth step in reducing commitments to the JCPOA (tomorrow) and I will declare the directives to the Atomic Energy Organization today,” said President Rouhani on Tuesday, during the inauguration ceremony of Azadi Innovation Factory, a venue for the gathering of startups.

“The 4th step of reducing commitments includes obligations regarding the Fordow enrichment facility,” Rouhani said.

“Under the JCPOA, we were inquired to have up to 1,044 centrifuges at Fordow, which were supposed to remain without gas. Starting tomorrow, we will start injecting gas into the centrifuges at Fordow as part of the fourth JCPOA step,” the president added.

“To all the remaining sides to the JCPOA and other friendly countries, I’d like to state in advance that our new measures will be taken under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” said Rouhani.

“Also, all measures in the fourth step are reversible just like in the previous steps; that is, the moment the other sides to the agreement begin to live up to their commitments, we will resume our own suspended commitments as well,” he added.

“Some countries made efforts to reach positive results before the fourth deadline ran out, but we have no other choice but to take the fourth step starting tomorrow,” Rouhani said.

He went on to stress, however, that “there is time for negotiations for the next two months. If we reached a proper solution for the removal of sanctions on our export of oil and metal, if we could easily use our money in trade transactions, then we would be fully ready to return to the previous conditions [regarding the level of our JCPOA commitments.”

“Europeans have not been successful to meet their JCPOA commitments and have tied all of their decisions and measure to Trump’s confirmation,” he said, adding, “Iran has its own plan and its own predictions and if the Europeans remain impotent, Iran will take the fourth step.”

Referring to President Rouhani’ HOPE initiative (Hormuz Peace Endeavor), he said “what President Rouhani and FM Zarif presented, about HOPE at recent UNGA, was just an overview of the formulated initiative and the full version of the plan will be submitted to Persian Gulf littoral states in near future.”

“The initiative will be implemented with the participation of regional countries and supervision of the UN,” Mousavi said.

A year after the US’ unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA, and in the face of EU’s lack of practical measures to protect Iran’s economy and trade ties against the US sanctions, Tehran announced its decision to row back on its nuclear commitments in compliance with articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA.

As the first step, Iran increased its enriched uranium stockpile to beyond the 300 kilograms set by the JCPOA. Next, it announced that it had begun enriching uranium to purity rates beyond the JCPOA-limit of 3.76 percent.

The details of the third step was announced by the spokesperson of Iran’s nuclear energy organization in early September, which included the activation of 20 IR-4 and 20 IR-6 centrifuges.

Iran says its measures will be reversible as soon as Europe finds practical ways to shield the Iranian economy from unilateral US sanctions.