Iran yesterday rejected a White House accusation that Tehran had long been in breach of the terms of its nuclear deal with world powers, after the Islamic Republic said that it had amassed more low-enriched uranium than permitted under the accord.
“Seriously?” Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter, after a statement by White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham that said: “There is little doubt that even before the deal’s existence, Iran was violating its terms.”
Tehran’s announcement drew a warning from US President Donald Trump that Tehran was “playing with fire.”
The move marked Iran’s first major step beyond the terms of the pact since the US pulled out of it more than a year ago.
However, Zarif said that the move was not a contravention of the accord, arguing that Tehran was exercising its right to respond to the US walkout.
However, the step could have far-reaching consequences for diplomacy at a time when European countries are trying to pull the US and Iran back from confrontation.
It comes less than two weeks after Trump said that he ordered air strikes on Iran, only to cancel them minutes before impact.
Iran’s Fars News Agency reported that the country’s enriched uranium stockpile has now passed the 300kg limit allowed under the deal.
UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which monitors Iran’s nuclear program under the deal, confirmed in Vienna that Tehran had breached the limit.
Trump, asked if he had a message for Iran, said: “No message to Iran. They know what they’re doing. They know what they’re playing with, and I think they’re playing with fire. So, no message to Iran whatsoever.”
European powers, which remain party to the accord and have tried to keep it in place, urged Iran not to take further steps that would break it, but they held off on declaring the agreement void or announcing sanctions of their own.
The White House charge that Iran was likely breaking the nuclear deal before and after it was reached in 2015 contrasts with CIA Director Gina Haspel’s testimony in January to the US Senate Intelligence Committee, saying: “At the moment, technically, they are in compliance.”
Arms Control Association executive director Daryl Kimball said the White House charge was “illogical.”
He said that at the time that the nuclear deal was concluded, Tehran and the IAEA agreed on a “roadmap” through which Iran is addressing the nuclear watchdog’s unanswered questions about the nuclear weapons research program, which the IAEA assessed ended in 2003.
“The process is still under way,” he said.
Kimball said that no international standard prohibits Iran from enriching uranium, as asserted by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, adding: “That is not the case. That is an American position.”
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