Iran gives world powers 60 days to meet economic demands before it withdraws from key aspects of 2015 nuclear deal

President Hassan Rouhani visits the Bushehr nuclear power plant just outside Bushehr, Iran, in 2015
AP

Iran today raised the stakes in its confrontation with America by pulling out of key commitments in the deal to curb its nuclear ambitions.

President Hassan Rouhani said he was suspending parts of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, on the sale of surplus enriched uranium and on heavy water.

The move, announced exactly a year after Donald Trump abandoned the JCPOA 2015 agreement, means Iran will keep enriched uranium stocks rather than sell them abroad, building up stockpiles that could ultimately provide a source of bomb-grade plutonium.

Mr Rouhani gave Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China 60 days to meet their commitments to Iran on banking and oil and pledged if they did so it would stick to the deal.

Technicians wash the reactor of the Bushehr nuclear power plant (file image)
Behrouz MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images

If the ultimatum was not met, Tehran threatened to resume high level uranium enrichment.

However, Donald Trump’s decision to reimpose sanctions has stymied efforts by the other world powers to keep the deal alive.

As tensions mounted, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a surprise visit to Iraq and warned against attacks on US interests.

The White House said at the weekend that it was sending the US Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and Air Force bombers to the Middle East because of ‘troubling and escalatory indications and warnings’ from Iran.

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Mr Pompeo was due in London today for talks with Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Iran.

The Secretary of State was also expected to warn the Prime Minister over plans to involve Chinese tech giant Huawei in the UK’s 5G telecoms network.

A leak over Huawei from the National Security Council led to the sacking of Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson last week.

The Iranian president stressed his country did not want to pull out of the JCPOA deal.

“The path we have chosen today is not the path of war, it is the path of diplomacy. But diplomacy with a new language and a new logic,” he said.

However, he said the five powers would face a “very decisive reaction” if Iran’s nuclear case was referred to the United Nations Security Council.

The threats from Tehran to pull back from the deal mean it could potentially be back on track to building a bomb by early July.

Former foreign minister Alistair Burt told BBC radio: “The worrying aspect of this is that the Iranian response to American action increases the pressure in the region, increases the risk of accidental confrontation which could lead to something else.”

France said it wanted to keep the Iran 2015 nuclear deal alive, but warned Tehran that if it were to not keep to its commitments then the question of triggering a mechanism that could lead to sanctions would be on the table.

The 2015 nuclear deal agreed by Iran, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, UK, France, China and Russia - and Germany, limited Iran’s capacity to produce nuclear fuel for 15 years.

But Mr Trump withdrew from the agreement brokered by his predecessor, Barack Obama, calling it the ‘worst deal in history.’

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