Iran vows to discard any limits on uranium
Rouhani’s threat puts more pressure on EU nuclear deal
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s president warned that Tehran will increase its enrichment of uranium to “any amount that we want” beginning on Sunday, putting further pressure on European nations to save its faltering nuclear deal and offer a way around intense U.S. sanctions.
President Hassan Rouhani’s threat, combined with Iran surpassing the stockpile limits of the 2015 atomic accord, could narrow the estimated one-year window it would need to produce enough material for a nuclear weapon, something Iran denies it wants but the deal sought to prevent.
But as tensions rise a year after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the deal, it looks unlikely that Europe can offer Iran a way to sell its oil on the global market despite U.S. sanctions.
All this comes the U.S. has rushed an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and F-22 fighters to the region and Iran recently shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone. “Be careful with the threats, Iran. They can come back to bite you like nobody has been bitten before!” Trump tweeted in response to Rouhani’s warning.
On Wednesday, Iran also marked the anniversary of the U.S. Navy shooting down an Iranian passenger jet in 1988, a mistake that killed 290 people and shows the danger of miscalculation in the current crisis.
“The Trump administration is pushing the center of Iranian politics to the right at the determent of the Iranian people and the entire region,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran analyst for the International Crisis Group. “Rouhani is clearly at the end of his rope and has no choice other than green lighting further escalation.”
Rouhani, still viewed inside Iran as a relatively moderate cleric in the country’s Shiite theocracy, has taken an increasingly hard-line tone in his remarks to the West. Particularly, he and others in his administration target European signatories to the nuclear deal for not doing enough to ease restrictions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors.
That continued Wednesday in a televised address to his Cabinet. His remarks seemed to signal that Europe has yet to offer Iran anything to alleviate the pain of the renewed U.S. sanctions targeting its oil industry and top officials.
The deal saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium to 3.67 percent, which is enough for nuclear power plants but far below the 90 percent needed for weapons. It also limited its stockpile of enriched uranium to 661 pounds. In exchange, Iran saw crippling economic sanctions lifted.
But after Trump withdrew from the deal, those sanctions and even more-stringent newer ones took effect. On Monday, both Iran and the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency confirmed that Tehran had breached that stockpile limit.
Rouhani some two months earlier set the Sunday deadline that Iran would increase its enrichment of uranium. Wednesday’s remarks underlined that.
However, Rouhani’s remarks, while strident, seemed to still insist last-minute diplomacy could be possible.
“Our advice to Europe and the United States is to go back to logic and to the negotiating table,” he said. “Go back to understanding, to respecting the law and resolutions of the U.N. Security Council. Under those conditions, all of us can abide by the nuclear deal.”
There was no immediate reaction in Europe, where the EU just the day before finalized nominations to take over the bloc’s top posts.