France on Wednesday told Iran that it was not in Tehran's interest to break with the nuclear accord and boost the enrichment level of its uranium beyond the limits agreed with major world powers in Vienna in 2015, urging Tehran to refrain from any move that may further fuel tensions in the region, the French Foreign Ministry said.
"Iran has nothing to gain by withdrawing from the agreement reached in Vienna. Calling the agreement into question would only serve to fuel already heightened tensions in the region," the ministry's spokeswoman, Agnes von der Muhll, told reporters.
"That is why France, together with its European partners, strongly urged Iran to immediately reverse its decision to exceed the stockpile limit and to refrain from any further measures that would undermine its nuclear obligations," she said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that Iran would boost, from July 7, its uranium enrichment to levels beyond the 3.67 percent purity cap set in the 2015 deal.
A day before, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the country's low-grade enriched uranium stockpile had exceeded 300 kg, one of several restrictions on its nuclear activities under the nuclear agreement.
Zarif noted that Iran's action to exceed the stockpile limit is a response to European countries' "insufficient" measures to ensure its benefit from the accord after the US's withdrawal from the landmark deal, signed four years ago between Iran and the five permanent member states of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany.
Asked whether the so-called INSTEX barter mechanism planned by Europe and Iran would be operational as scheduled by the end of July, von der Muhll said that "France, together with its European partners, will, for its part, spare no effort to ensure that Iran can continue to reap the economic benefits of the agreement reached in Vienna."
She added that the INSTEX mechanism was created to preserve trade links with Iran despite Washington's sanctions and facilitate the financial transactions of legitimate business operations between Europe and Iran
"on the basis of Iran's full compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action)."
