US President Donald Trump has threatened Iran with tightening sanctions. Iran has long secretly enriched and violated the nuclear deal, Trump wrote today on Twitter. The sanctions against Tehran would soon be „significantly expanded“, he added.
The US withdrew from Iran’s international nuclear deal a year ago and has since reinstated severe economic sanctions against Tehran. Iran, after years of observance of all conditions, violently violated two key conditions of the 2015 agreement over the past ten days. The Islamic Republic exceeded the amount of permitted uranium and the upper limit of its enrichment.
Iran enriches uranium to 4.5 percent
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) informed member states that Iran increased its uranium enrichment to 4.5 percent. According to the nuclear agreement Teheran uranium may only enrich to 3.67 percent. In addition, the IAEA announced that Iran now has 213.5 kilograms of enriched uranium. According Atomdeal but only 202.8 kilograms are allowed.
With this partial withdrawal, Tehran wants to urge the remaining partners of the agreement to respond to his wishes for economic cooperation. This goal is barely achievable by the US sanctions against, among other things, the oil export of Iran.
Macron wrote to Rouhani
Iranian President Hassan Ruhani received a letter from his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron. Rouhani praised Macron’s efforts to save the 2015 Vienna Atomic Energy Convention and assured that Iran would also keep the diplomatic channel open. „We all want the nuclear deal to be implemented properly (…), so all sides need to take the opportunity to make that happen,“ Rouhani said. There were no details about the content of the letter.
