France Asks Iran to Reverse Its Enrichment Decision

French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement on Tuesday that he recalled "his attachment to the full respect of the 2015 nuclear accord and asks Iran to reverse without delay this excess, as well as to avoid all extra measures that would put into question its nuclear commitments."

The statement added that Macron would take steps in coming days to ensure Iran met its obligations and continued to benefit from the economic advantages of the deal, Reuters reported.

On Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced that the country’s enriched uranium stockpile has passed the 300-kilogram limit.

He said that Tehran was exercising its right to respond to Washington's withdrawal from the deal and would only reconsider its decision if France, Germany, and the UK honor their commitments under the agreement. 

Also on Tuesday, Zarif rejected a White House accusation that Tehran was long violating the terms of the nuclear deal.

"Seriously?" Zarif said in a message on social network 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 reaction from President Donald Trump that Tehran was "playing with fire."

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, 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."

The White House charge that Iran probably was in violation of the nuclear deal before and after it was reached in 2015 sharply contrasts with CIA Director Gina Haspel’s testimony in January to the Senate Intelligence Committee saying, "At the moment, technically, they are in compliance."

Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, said the White House charge was "illogical."

He pointed out that at the time 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 that the IAEA and the US intelligence community assessed ended in 2003.

"The process is still underway," he said.

He also said there was no international standard prohibiting Iran from enriching uranium, as asserted by Pompeo. "That is not the case. That is an American position," he said.

It was the United States, he said, that first violated the deal when Trump withdrew from it while Iran still was in compliance and then re-imposed harsh US sanctions that had been suspended by the nuclear agreement.

Iran’s breach, he said, does not affect the deal’s central target of extending to a year the time in which Iran could "breakout" and produce enough highly enriched uranium for a warhead.

The breach is a political move aimed at pressuring the European Union, China and Russia to compensate Iran for the serious damage to its economy from US sanctions, he said.

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