NEW YORK • Iran is ready to "vigorously" resume nuclear enrichment if the United States ditches a 2015 nuclear deal, and further "drastic measures" are being considered in response to a US exit, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has warned.
Mr Zarif told reporters in New York that Iran is not seeking to acquire a nuclear bomb, but its "probable" response to a US withdrawal from the deal would be to restart production of enriched uranium - a key bomb-making ingredient.
"America never should have feared Iran producing a nuclear bomb, but we will pursue vigorously our nuclear enrichment," Mr Zarif said last Saturday.
Under the nuclear deal, Teheran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in return for relief from economic sanctions. President Donald Trump's predecessor, Mr Barack Obama, struck the pact to try to keep Iran from building a nuclear weapon but Mr Trump believes it has "disastrous flaws".
Mr Trump will decide by May 12 whether to restore US economic sanctions on Teheran, which would be a severe blow to the 2015 pact between Iran and six major powers. He has pressured European allies to work with the US to fix the deal.
In a CBS interview to be broadcast yesterday on Face The Nation, Mr Zarif doubled down on a warning this month from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who vowed Washington would "regret" withdrawing from the nuclear deal, and that Iran would respond within a week if it did.
"If the decision comes from President Trump to officially withdraw from the deal, then Iran will take decisions that have been provided for under the JCPOA and outside JCPOA," Mr Zarif said, referring to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
"We have... a number of options for ourselves and those options are ready, including options that would involve resuming at a much greater speed our nuclear activities.
"And those are all envisioned within the deal. And those options are ready to be implemented and we would make the necessary decision when we see fit," added the Foreign Minister, who is in the US to attend a United Nations meeting on sustaining peace.
The fate of the Iran deal will be a key issue during French President Emmanuel Macron's state visit to Washington beginning today, followed by talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Washington on Friday.
French officials say they have been briefed by their White House counterparts that Mr Trump still has not decided whether he will stick with the Iran deal.
European leaders are hoping to persuade Mr Trump to save the deal if they, in turn, agree to press Iran to agree on moderating its regional influence in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon.
If the US buries the deal, Iran is unlikely to stick to the agreement alongside the other signatories - Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, said Mr Zarif.
"Obviously, the rest of the world cannot ask us to unilaterally and one-sidedly implement a deal that has already been broken," he said.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS, BLOOMBERG
