Iran To Calm Nuclear Concerns Amid UN Enrichment Warning

Iran expressed a conciliatory message to Western leaders in Davos on Wednesday, with a top official denying it wants nuclear weapons and offering talks about opportunities, days after its arch rival Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

However, the comments by Iran’s Vice-President for Strategic Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif coincided with a warning by the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog that Tehran is “pressing the gas pedal” in enriching uranium to near weapons-grade.

Europe must have a seat at the table when deals about war and peace are made, and I’m not just talking about Ukraine here, this should be the standard.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi has called for diplomacy between Iran and Trump, who in his first term, pulled the U.S. out of a nuclear deal that had imposed strict limits on Iran’s atomic activities.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, said that Iran must make a first step towards improving relations with countries in the Middle East and the U.S. by making it clear it does not aim to develop nuclear weapons.

Zarif’s remarks appeared aimed at calming those worries, amid fears that the Middle East is headed for yet more war with the return of a U.S. president who, during his first administration, cast Tehran as his top foreign policy villain.

Zarif dismissed the idea that Tehran sought nuclear arms, and signalled support for the idea of talks to improve relations between Iran and its critics in the West.

Iranian, Arab and Western officials told Reuters late last year that Iran’s main concern is the potential for Trump to push Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear sites and reimpose his “maximum pressure policy” through more sanctions on its oil.

Trump stated in an election speech in October his unwillingness to go to war with Iran, but said Israel should “hit the Iranian nuclear first and worry about the rest later”, in response to an Iranian missile attack on Israel on Oct. 1.

In 2018, then-President Trump reneged on Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and re-imposed harsh U.S. sanctions as part of his “maximum pressure” policy on Iran.

Enrichment

In response, Tehran breached the deal in several ways including by accelerating its uranium enrichment.

Grossi said last month that Iran had informed the IAEA that it would “dramatically” accelerate enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, closer to the roughly 90% of weapons grade.

Western powers called the step a serious escalation and said there was no civil justification for enriching to that level and that no other country had done so without producing nuclear weapons.

Iran has said its programme is entirely peaceful and it has the right to enrich uranium to any level it wants.

Reuters/Ejiofor Ezeifeoma