Iran rejects French mediation and threatens to suspend nuclear inspections

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Commenting on the French mediation offer between Iran and the United States to revive the nuclear deal, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said, The agreement does not need mediators.

Khatib Zadeh said during a press conference on Monday, If the Americans want to act with wisdom, we do not stop them, but rather we will welcome and encourage them. The nuclear agreement does not need mediators, everything is without in this international agreement, and even the breaks were discussed when drafting this agreement.

Khatibzadeh accused the European member states of the agreement of violating it, saying, They are the party that should return to its obligations, not us. Europe can play a very historical and correct role by fulfilling its obligations and distancing itself from the perception that it can use the inhuman pressure tools created by the Trump administration, because this policy has failed.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman also said that Tehran will suspend the implementation of the additional protocol if the parties to the agreement do not return to their obligations.

Inspection suspension

Khatibzadeh reiterated that Iran's escalatory steps can be reversed if the other parties fulfill their obligations, saying: If the other parties do not fulfill their obligations according to the Iranian Parliament Law, on March 21, Iran will suspend inspections.

Positions of Biden and Khamenei

On Sunday, US President Joe Biden said that the United States will not lift sanctions on Iran until it returns to the negotiating table to revive the nuclear deal.

This came hours after Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei announced his condition that the United States lift all sanctions in exchange for Tehran's return to its obligations.

Iranian Escalation

This is while Iran continues to escalate, as its permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Kazem Gharib Abadi, announced, last week, that his country had installed 696 centrifuges of the modern IR2M generation with a capacity four times the previous generation in the Natanz facility, in Isfahan, in the center of the country, in addition to the installation Two IR6 generation series at Fordow, near the capital, Tehran.

This came after US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned that if Iran continues to violate its nuclear obligations, it will only have a few weeks of producing nuclear fissile material to build nuclear weapons.

While the new US government says Iran must return to its nuclear commitments fully, Tehran says the United States must lift sanctions before returning to the deal.

The issue of Iran's withdrawal from its nuclear obligations has become more serious in recent weeks after parliament approved the Strategic Action for Lifting Sanctions Act on December 2, which obligated the government to raise the enrichment rate to 20%.

It also stipulated the expulsion of IAEA inspectors from Iran if the financial, banking and oil sanctions are not lifted by March, as well as the suspension of the Additional Protocol to Non-Proliferation.

Israel's position

The Iranian escalation prompted Israel to threaten a military strike on Iran to stop its ambition to obtain a nuclear bomb, as the Israeli Chief of Staff warned the Biden government of the possibility of the United States returning to the nuclear deal with Iran, saying that Israel had prepared new plans to attack Iran this year.

On the other hand, Iran's permanent representative to the United Nations, Majid Takht Rawanji, sent, in a note to the United Nations, the consequences of any possible Israeli military attack, saying that Iran will respond firmly to any threat or mistake.