Iran’s foreign ministry on Thursday summoned the envoys of Britain, France, and Germany over what it called a misuse of the UN Security Council to hold a closed-door meeting on Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Britain had on Wednesday warned that it would trigger a return of UN sanctions on Iran, if necessary, to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon as the Security Council met to discuss Tehran’s expansion of its stock of uranium, which is close to weapons grade.
Iran has, however, denied any intention to develop a nuclear weapon, stating that its nuclear programme is purely peaceful.
Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, has warned that Iran’s production of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity—close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level—has recently increased.
According to Western states, there is no need to enrich uranium to such a high level under any civilian programme, and no other country has done so without producing nuclear bombs.
It was gathered that the closed-door meeting at the UN was called by six of the Security Council’s 15 members, including the US, France, Greece, Panama, South Korea, and Britain.
The US mission to the United Nations said in a statement after the Council meeting that Iran was the only country in the world without nuclear weapons that was producing highly enriched uranium, for which it has no credible peaceful purpose.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Wednesday appeared to dismiss a US proposal for negotiations over its nuclear programme.
Iran summons UK, France, Germany over UN closed-door meeting
