Iran’s foreign minister hits back at France over accusations that Tehran is building weapons
Iran’s foreign minister yesterday dismissed a warning by France that Tehran was in the process of building up its nuclear weapons, calling the claim “absurd nonsense”.
The French message came on Saturday, the same day Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired ballistic missiles in the Indian Ocean, wrapping up a two-day military exercise.
France said Iran was building up its nuclear capacity and called for its uranium acceleration activities to stop.
Javad Zarif criticised French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, France, Germany and Britain for failing to enforce Iran’s nuclear agreement since 2018, when US President Donald Trump abandoned it and restored harsh economic sanctions on Tehran.
Acting on orders from President Hassan Rouhani, Iran announced this month that it was pressing ahead with plans to enrich uranium to 20 per cent fissile strength at its new Fordow nuclear plant.
In doing so, Iran increased its breaches of the 2015 deal with world powers to contain its nuclear ambitions.
Mr Le Drian said it was important to “tell the Iranians that this is enough” and bring Iran and the US back into the accord.
“The Trump administration chose what it called the maximum pressure campaign on Iran. The result was that this strategy only increased the risk and the threat,” Mr Le Drian told Le Journal du Dimanche.
The nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, has been largely in tatters since Mr Trump withdrew in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran.
The agreement signed in 2015 by Iran, the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, limited Iran’s uranium enrichment levels to 4.5 per cent.
The resumption of enrichment to 20 per cent brings Tehran closer to developing the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon, but it is still far from the 90 per cent level that is needed to make bomb-grade fuel.
Iran claims its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.
The decision to bolster uranium enrichment came after the assassination in November of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and coincided with the anniversary of the assassination of military commander Qassem Suleimani in a US drone strike in Iraq last year.
The official announcement came a few days before the inauguration of US president-elect Joe Biden.
Mr Biden’s team expressed conditional willingness to return to diplomacy with Tehran. They said that under a Biden administration the US would return to the deal if Iran resumed strict compliance with its terms.