Iranian president threatens to revitalize nuclear program
TEHRAN— Iran’s president warned Tuesday that it could ramp up its nuclear program and quickly achieve a more advanced level if the U.S. continues “threats and sanctions” against the country, which signed a landmark nuclear accord with world powers in 2015.
Hassan Rouhani’s remarks to lawmakers were his most direct warning that the deal could fall apart, and risked ratcheting up tensions with the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to scuttle the accord, which limited Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon while ending most sanctions against it.
Iran’s parliament voted this week to increase spending on the country’s ballistic missile program and the foreign operations of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The move came in response to U.S. legislation passed this month imposing mandatory penalties on people involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them. The U.S. legislation also applies terrorism sanctions to the Guard and enforces an existing arms embargo.
“In an hour and a day, Iran could return to a more advanced (nuclear) level than at the beginning of the negotiations” that preceded the 2015 deal, Rouhani said, though he underlined that Iran’s preference is to remain in the accord.
The manoeuvring around the Iran deal comes as tensions have skyrocketed between the U.S and North Korea, which has tested nuclear weapons and threatened in recent weeks to fire a ballistic missile into the waters off the U.S. territory of Guam.
The agreement between Iran and world powers two years ago capped Iran’s uranium enrichment levels in return for the lifting of international sanctions.
The U.S. and other world powers fear Iran seeks the ability to produce atomic weapons. Iran has long denied that it seeks nuclear arms and says its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.
It was not immediately clear what Rouhani was referring to — and whether he meant Iran could restart centrifuges enriching uranium to higher and more dangerous levels.
He also offered no evidence of Iran’s ability to rapidly restart higher enrichment, though Iran still has its stock of centrifuges. Those devices now churn out uranium to low levels that can range from use as reactor fuel and for medical and research purposes, but could produce the levels needed for a nuclear weapon.
In December, Rouhani ordered up plans to build nuclear-powered ships, something that appears to be allowed under the nuclear deal.
“The deal was a model of the victory of peace and diplomacy over war and unilateralism,” Rouhani said. “It was Iran’s preference, but it was not and will not remain Iran’s only option.”