Iran poised to breach the nuclear deal for third time

IRAN will this week make its most drastic violation of the nuclear deal so far, the country’s president has said.

Hassan Rouhani said a third breach of the agreement would be announced in the coming days and would be “the most important yet”, as he ramped up pressure on Europe to defy US sanctions and aid Iran’s flagging economy.

Even as he made the threat, he said that talks with France to salvage the deal were “moving forward”.

“If we had 20 issues of disagreement with the Europeans in the past, today there are three issues,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iran said it would release seven crew members from a British-flagged tanker it seized in July, in the first sign of a possible easing of the standoff between London and Tehran.

Seven men from the 23-member crew of the Stena Impero will be re- leased on humanitarian grounds, Iran said yesterday. All seven are Indian. Another 11 Indians, three Russians, a Latvian and a Filipino remain.

Iran has been slowly ratcheting up its violations of the nuclear deal since July, the anniversary of Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the deal and reimpose sanctions on Iran.

So far, Tehran has made two relatively minor breaches. France, Germany and Britain are still trying to salvage the accord before it collapses.

Meanwhile, it emerged that the US has offered millions of dollars to the captains of Iranian oil tankers if they sail their ships to countries where they will be impounded. The US made such an offer to the captain of the Grace 1, the tanker recently released from Gibraltar, now believed to be heading to Syria, said the Financial Times. The captain did not respond to the offer.