PARIS (FRANCE) – The French foreign minister said on Saturday that Iran is building up its nuclear weapons capacity and it is the need of the hour for Tehran and Washington to return to the 2015 nuclear deal.
Iran has been expediting its breaches of the nuclear pact and earlier this month, it started forging ahead with plans to enrich uranium to 20% fissile strength at its underground Fordow nuclear plant.
The breaches of the nuclear deal ever since President Donald Trump withdrew the US from it in 2018 and the sanctions imposed on Iran thereafter are likely to complicate efforts by President-elect Joe Biden to rejoin the pact.
“The Trump administration chose what it called the maximum pressure campaign on Iran. The result was that this strategy only increased the risk and the threat,” Jean-Yves Le Drian told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.
“This has to stop because Iran and – I say this clearly – is in the process of acquiring nuclear (weapons) capacity.”