Iran announced on Wednesday it was scaling back curbs to its nuclear program under a 2015 deal with world powers, and threatened to do more -- including enriching uranium to a higher level -- if countries did not shield it from US sanctions. A year after Washington pulled out of the nuclear deal with Iran, President Hassan Rohani unveiled measures that do not appear to violate the deal's terms yet, but could do so in the future if Iran were to persist on the course he set out. Rohani said Tehran would halt a program to sell excess enriched uranium and heavy water to other countries, an arrangement used under the nuclear deal to keep its own stockpiles below permitted caps. And he threatened that in 60 days Iran would resume enrichment of uranium beyond the low level permitted under the deal, unless the five other powers signed up to it find a way to protect Iran's oil and banking industries from US sanctions. "If the five countries came to the negotiating table and we reached an agreement, and if they could protect our interests in the oil and banking sectors, we will go back to square one," Rohani said. "The Iranian people and the world should know that today is not the end of the JCPOA," he said, using the acronym for the nuclear deal. "These are actions in line with the JCPOA." The 2015 deal was signed between Iran, the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions. The weeks leading up to the anniversary of Trump's withdrawal from the agreement have seen a sharp tightening of US sanctions and an increase in tensions on other fronts. From this month, Washington has effectively ordered countries around the world to stop buying any Iranian oil or face sanctions of their own, revoking waivers that had allowed some countries to continue buying Iranian oil. It says it aims to reduce Iranian crude exports to zero. Washington has also blacklisted Iran's Revolutionary Guards force as a terrorist organization and Iran responded with threats to close the Gulf's strait of Hormuz if its ships were blocked there. Washington announced the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the Gulf to counter what it says are Iranian threats. Tehran says the USS Abraham Lincoln is replacing another carrier that had already left the area under a scheduled rotation, and calls the announcement "psychological warfare" based on old news. The looming total ban on oil sales is likely to sharply increase the economic hardship for Iran's 80 million people, and finding a response is the biggest test yet for Rohani, a pragmatist who has faced strong opposition from the hardline faction of Iran's leadership throughout his six years in office. — Reuters
