A top Iranian official has called on the United States to address Tehran with respect, not threat of war, a day after US President Donald Trump issued an ominous warning to Tehran on Twitter.
The war of words on Monday came as the semi-official Tasnim news agency announced Iran has increased by fourfold the rate of low-enriched uranium production in line with its decision to scale back some of its commitments under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
“Iranians have stood tall for millennia while aggressors all gone. Economic terrorism and genocidal taunts won’t ‘end Iran‘,” Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, wrote on Twitter.
“Never threaten an Iranian. Try respect – it works!”
The riposte followed a Twitter post by Trump, who told Iran not to threaten the US, saying it would face its “official end” if it wants “to fight”. He did not clarify what threats he meant.
Relations between Washington and Tehran plummeted a year ago when Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.
Since exiting the international deal, Trump has tightened sanctions on Tehran, which denounced the punishing measures as “economic terrorism”.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani responded earlier this month saying his country would no longer observe limits on its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium.
Under the deal, Tehran was allowed to stockpile a maximum of 300 kg of low-enriched uranium, and ship any excess out of the country for storage or sale.
The agreement also allowed Iran to enrich uranium at 3.67 percent – a rate suitable for civilian nuclear power generation, but far below the 90 percent of weapons grade.
Tehran has threatened to gradually withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal if partners still in the agreement – Britain, China, France , Germany and Russia – do not help it to circumvent US sanctions.
Uranium enrichment
On Monday, both the semi-official Fars and Tasnim news agencies reported on the quadrupled production of low-enriched uranium, quoting Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesmen of Iran’s nuclear agency.
Kamalvandi told Tasnim that the UN atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had been notified about the move.
“It won’t be long until we pass the 300-kg limit of low enriched uranium. So it’s better for the other side to do what it’s necessary to be done,” he said, alluding to steps by other powers to shield Iran’s economy from US sanctions.
He said the acceleration of Iran’s centrifuge enrichment machines remained within the bounds of the nuclear deal, and Tehran had no intention to exit the accord.
Earlier in May, Washington revoked two sanctions waivers that allowed Iran to store excess heavy water produced in the uranium enrichment process in Oman, and another than allowed it to swap enriched uranium for mined uranium with Russia.
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Francois Nicoullaud, a former French ambassador to Iran, told Al Jazeera those US moves breached the nuclear deal.
“The message coming from Washington to the Iranians was: from now on you won’t be able to sell anymore the enriched uranium and the heavy water that the JCPOA allowed the Iranians to produce. This is a breach of the JCPOA,” he said.
Rising tensions
The Iranian move to resume uranium enrichment follows days of heightened tensions sparked by the Trump administration’s deployment of bombers and an aircraft carrier to the Gulf over still-unspecified threats from Iran.
Last week, it also ordered non-essential diplomatic staff out of Iraq, citing the danger posted by Iranian-backed Iraqi armed groups.
On Sunday a rocket was fired into the Green Zone of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, which houses government offices and embassies including the US mission. It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack.
Iraqi Shia leaders warned on Monday against dragging their country into a possible war between the US and Iran.
Prominent Shia Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said he was against fuelling the war between the United States and Iran, as such a scenario would turn Iraq “into a battlefield”.
“We need peace and construction and any party who drags Iraq into war and turns it into a battlefield will be the enemy of the Iraqi people,” he said.
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While the US claim of Iranian “threats” has been met with widespread scepticism outside the US, the mounting tensions have sparked growing international concern.
“I would say to the Iranians, do not underestimate the resolve on the US side in the situation,” Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told reporters on Monday in Geneva.
“They don’t want a war with Iran, but if American interests are attacked they will retaliate. And that is something that the Iranians need to think about very, very carefully,” he added.
“We want the situation to de-escalate because this is a part of the world where things can get triggered accidentally,” Hunt said.
‘Goaded into war’
US media reports say Trump’s hawkish national security advisor John Bolton is pushing for war with Iran, but others in the administration are resisting.
Zarif’s tweet said Trump is being “goaded by #B Team,” a term he coined to refer to Bolton as well as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, known as Bibi and the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, Mohammad bin Salman and Mohammad bin Zayed, who are all pushing a hard line on Tehran.
Saudi Arabia on Saturday called for emergency regional talks to discuss the mounting Gulf tensions.
It came days after mysterious sabotage attacks on several tankers in highly sensitive Gulf waters and drone strikes on a Saudi crude pipeline by Yemen rebels who Riyadh claimed were acting on Iranian orders.
Iran has denied any involvement in the incidents.
Saudi Arabia’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Adel al-Jubeir, said on Sunday his country does not want to go to war with Iran but would defend itself.
Saudi Arabia “does not want a war, is not looking for it and will do everything to prevent it,” he said.
“But at the same time, if the other side chooses war, the kingdom will respond with strength and determination to defend itself and its interests.”
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