Chinese arms control chief urges world to keep calm after Iran breaches nuclear deal

There is no need to panic about Iran’s moves to stockpile uranium because the amount in question does not raise the risk of proliferation, China’s arms control chief has said.

Fu Cong, the Chinese foreign ministry’s head of arms control affairs, told a meeting of the United Nations nuclear watchdog in Vienna on Wednesday that “we should not overreact to the actions taken by Iran because, in our view, these actions do not incur any proliferation risks and they do not contravene Iran's obligation under the safeguard agreement”.

Iran had previously threatened to start breaching the limits agreed under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in response to the US decision to pull out of the deal last year.

On Wednesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board was told that inspectors had verified that Iran’s low-enriched uranium stockpiles had exceeded the 3.67 per cent limit agreed under the deal, reaching 4.5 per cent.

Low-enriched uranium, which typically has a 3 to 5 per cent concentration, can be used as fuel for commercial nuclear power plants.

Fu expressed regret at Iran’s decision, but also repeated Beijing’s call for the US to abandon its maximum pressure policy against Iran and recommit to the international agreement.

China’s official news agency Xinhua said the situation came as a result of the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal and its imposition of unilateral sanctions against Iran.

It also reported that Fu had told the IAEA: “We are fully committed to the JCPOA, and we are making every effort to implement the commitment we have undertaken under the JCPOA.”

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The agreement was signed in 2015 by Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, Britain and the US – as well as Germany and the European Union with the objective of curbing Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions.

But last year US President Donald Trump said he would pull out of the “horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made” saying it “didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will”.

In April the US tightened sanctions on Tehran by stopping all countries from buying Iranian oil.

Following Iran’s breach of the agreement, Trump threatened on Wednesday to “substantially” increase sanctions.

“Iran has long been secretly ‘enriching’, in total violation of the terrible 150 Billion Dollar deal made by [former secretary of state] John Kerry and the Obama Administration,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Jackie Wolcott, US ambassador to IAEA in Vienna, told the IAEA meeting that: “There is no credible reason for Iran to expand its nuclear programme, and there is no way to read this as anything other than a crude and transparent attempt to extort payments from the international community”.

Yin Gang, a Middle East specialist from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, said: “China supports the stakeholders going back to the negotiation table and is against any confrontation and escalation.”

The US was waiting for the perfect time to maximise the impact of its economic sanctions on Iran so it could press for more concessions, he said.