Iranian patience is running out on the European Union's pledges to keep up oil trade despite U.S. sanctions and Iran would be warning the EU's top diplomat of this, Iran's nuclear chief said on Tuesday.
Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said his country could resume enriching uranium to 20% purity – considered well above the level needed to fuel civilian power plants – if it fails to see the economic benefits of the 2015 international nuclear deal, which curbed its nuclear program.
"If we cannot sell our oil and we don't enjoy financial transactions, then I don't think keeping the deal will benefit us anymore," Salehi said ahead of a meeting with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini in Brussels on Tuesday.
"I will pass certainly a word of caution to her [Mogherini]. I think the period of patience for our people is getting more limited and limited. We are running out of the assumed timeline, which was in terms of months."
Following the meeting, Mogherini said she and Salehi remained committed to safeguarding the nuclear accord.
"They equally expressed their determination to preserve the nuclear agreement as a matter of respecting international agreements and a key pillar for European and regional security," Mogherini's office said in a statement.
It said Mogherini also repeated the EU stance "on issues of concern such as Iran's role in the region" – alluding to Iranian involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts from Yemen to Syria.
Under the 2015 deal between Iran and six world powers, Iran restricted its enrichment program, widely seen in the West as a disguised effort to develop the means to make atomic bombs, in exchange for an end to international sanctions.
However, U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the accord in May, saying it was weak and did not halt Iran's development of ballistic missiles or support for armed proxies abroad, and reimposed sanctions on Iran, including earlier this month on its vital oil export sector.
But Europe, led by Germany, France and the United Kingdom, sees the nuclear deal as an important element of international security, and it and the other signatories – China and Russia – have struggled to preserve trade incentives for Iran to respect the deal's nuclear limits under U.S. pressure.
In Brussels for talks on civilian nuclear cooperation that EU officials intended as a signal of support for the accord, Salehi said the bloc's efforts were encouraging but added, "We have not yet seen any tangible results."
He welcomed an EU plan to establish a special financial vehicle for non-dollar trade with Iran, but only if it can preserve Iranian oil exports – Iran's economic lifeline.
"It [the special vehicle] could be helpful in keeping the deal alive," he said. "If there is nothing to reap, then what is the purpose of us staying in, because voices in Iran are day by day becoming more against the deal."
Salehi reiterated warnings that Iran has the technical capacity to ramp up enrichment if the deal unravels.
"It is very easy for us to go back to what we were before – even to a better position. We can start the 20% enrichment activity. We can increase the amount of enriched uranium," he said.
Uranium refined to 20% purity is well beyond the 5% normally required to run civilian nuclear power stations, though still well short of the 80% to 90% purity needed for a nuclear bomb.
