Iran on Sunday declared that it will no longer abide by any of the restrictions imposed by the 2015 nuclear deal. This came shorty after the United States (U.S.) drone strike in Baghdad, killing scores of Iranian Army, which includes Soleimani, head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilizations Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi), an Iran-backed umbrella organization comprising several militias. Several other people were also killed in Friday’s attack.
In a statement, it said it would no longer observe limitations on its capacity for enrichment, the level of enrichment, the stock of enriched material, or research and development.
The statement came after a meeting of the Iranian cabinet in Tehran.
It comes amid heightened tensions over the killing of Soleimani.
The move by the U.S. has drawn condemnation from leaders and officials who fear that tensions in the region could escalate drastically. Soleimani’s killing marks a major escalation in tensions between Washington and Tehran.
In an exclusive interview with CNN in Tehran, the adviser – Maj. Gen. Hossein Dehghan – made the most specific and direct threat yet by a senior Iranian official following. Dehghan said Iran would retaliate directly against U.S. “military sites”. Dehghan is a former defence minister and is now the main military adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He told CNN that reprisals would come from Iran itself, not its allied militia in the region.