Iran breaches its uranium stockpile limit set by deal
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has broken the limit set on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, international inspectors and Tehran said Monday, marking its first major departure from the unraveling agreement a year after the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the accord.
The announcement by Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and later confirmation by the U.N. nuclear watchdog puts new pressure on European nations trying to save the deal amid President Donald Trump’s maximalist campaign targeting Tehran. Iran separately threatened to raise its uranium enrichment closer to weaponsgrade levels on July 7 if Europe fails to offer it a new deal.
It also further heightens tensions across the wider Middle East in the wake of Iran recently shooting down a U.S. military surveillance drone, mysterious attacks on oil tankers that America and the Israelis blame on Tehran, and bomb-laden drone assaults by Yemen’s Iranian-backed rebels targeting Saudi Arabia. Those rebels claimed a new attack late Monday on Saudi Arabia’s Abha airport that the kingdom said wounded nine people, including one Indian.
The European Union urged Iran to reverse course and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the action “a significant step toward making a nuclear weapon.” Iran long has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, despite Western fears about it.
At the White House, Trump told reporters Iran was “playing with fire,” and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on the international community to require Iran to suspend all enrichment, even at levels allowed under the nuclear deal.
“The Iranian regime, armed with nuclear weapons, would pose an even greater danger to the region and to the world,” Pompeo said in a statement.
Though Trump pulled back from airstrikes targeting Iran after the U.S. drone was shot down, Washington has rushed an aircraft carrier strike group, nuclearcapable B-52 bombers and thousands of additional troops to the region. That’s raised fears that a miscalculation or further incidents could push the two sides into an armed conflict, some 40 years after the Islamic Revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Speaking to journalists in Tehran, Zarif acknowledged Iran that broken through the limit set by the accord.
“We had previously announced this and we have said it transparently what we are going to do,” Zarif said. “We are going to act according to what we have announced and we consider it our right reserved in the nuclear deal.”
The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, later said its director general had informed officials that it verified Iran had broken through the limit.