(Bloomberg) — French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that Iran’s nuclear program is moving in a potentially irreversible direction, approaching the point of no return.
“With the acceleration of (Iran’s) nuclear program, we are very close to the breaking point,” President Macron said in a speech to French ambassadors in Paris on Monday.
The country has enough material to fuel a small number of warheads should the government make the political decision to go nuclear.
Last month, Iran announced it would increase its nuclear fuel production capacity in response to a rebuke from the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency over Iran’s failure to resolve an investigation into uranium particles found at an undeclared site. Iran claims its nuclear program is for energy purposes.
The IAEA is expected to produce a more comprehensive report as part of a broader Western effort to potentially reimpose or “rescind” UN sanctions on Iran before they expire in October 2025. has been done. That diplomatic mechanism was part of the nuclear deal, which has now expired and been scrapped. In 2018, then-President Donald Trump imposed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
Referring to President Trump’s return to the White House later this month, President Macron said, “Iran is definitely one of the key issues that we will revisit in our dialogue with the new US administration.”
Iran operates thousands of centrifuges spinning at high speed to separate uranium isotopes. The machine typically produces low-level nuclear reactor fuel, but can be programmed to produce highly enriched uranium suitable for weapons.
President Macron said Iran is the biggest strategic and security challenge for Europe and its allies, citing Russia’s support for Ukraine.
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