SULAIMANI (ESTA) — France’s foreign ministry warned Iran on Thursday against taking further measures that could breach the 2015 nuclear accord with world powers and as a result jeopardise a diplomatic window opened with the arrival of a new U.S. administration.
“To preserve the political space to find a negotiated solution, we call on Iran not to take any new measures that would further worsen the nuclear situation, already extremely worrying due to the accumulation of violations of the Vienna Accord, including the latest just reported by the IAEA,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll said.
She was referring to a U.N. atomic watchdog report on Wednesday that said Tehran had carried out its plan to produce uranium metal.
Iran has also warned it could block later this month short-notice inspections of its nuclear facilities.
Iran began breaching its nuclear deal with major powers step by step in 2019 in response to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the deal the previous year and Washington’s reimposition of sanctions on Tehran.
Iran has in recent months accelerated those breaches of the deal’s restrictions on its atomic activities, potentially complicating efforts to bring the United States back into the deal under President Joe Biden.
A law passed in response to the killing of its top nuclear scientist in November, which Tehran blames on its foe Israel, called for steps including opening a uranium metal plant. Iran told the International Atomic Energy Agency in December it planned to produce uranium metal fuel for a research reactor.
(Esta Media Network/Reuters)
