Iran’s president has enacted a law to suspend cooperation with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, Iranian state media reported on Wednesday, in a move that will shut out international inspectors from overseeing the country’s contested nuclear program.

The decision will further strain relations between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which were already at a low point since the start of the 12-day war with Israel and the United States that battered Iran’s nuclear facilities and brought calls from Israel for renewed sanctions on Iran.

Iran could feel that it needs to start work on building a weapon as a deterrent to future attacks, experts have warned. But Iran’s move to cut ties with the I.A.E.A. may also be a tactic to gain leverage in new negotiations with the Trump administration over the future of the Iranian nuclear program.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, Tammy Bruce, said Iran’s suspension was “unacceptable” at a time it has “a window of opportunity to reverse course and choose a path of peace and prosperity.”

Amelia Nierenberg and Sanam Mahoozi New York Times

LONDON — Iran will hold nuclear talks with Britain, France and Germany, Iranian state media reported Monday, days after they threatened to reimpose U.N. sanctions on the country by the end of August unless there was progress on a deal to limit its nuclear program.

The talks will take place in Istanbul on Friday, but Iranian officials played down the prospect of restarting direct negotiations with the United States, after President Donald Trump joined Israel in launching airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last month.

“At present, we have no plans to hold talks with the United States,” Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said at a news conference Monday, according to state-owned media.

Britain, France and Germany remain part of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that was also signed by the Obama administration, China, Russia and the European Union. The deal includes a procedure to allow so-called snapback sanctions to be reimposed on Iran if the country were deemed to be violating the nuclear provisions. Trump pulled out of the agreement during his first term.

The European governments hoped that the threat of renewing the sanctions, which were lifted 10 years ago, would bring Iran to the negotiating table. Their goals were to persuade Iran to resume cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, after suspending it last month, and to limit or eliminate Iran’s ability to enrich uranium.

“It was the U.S. that withdrew from a two-year negotiated deal — coordinated by EU in 2015 — not Iran,” Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said on social media Friday, a day after he spoke with the foreign ministers of the European countries and Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief. Araghchi added that the Europeans did not have any “moral and legal ground” to reapply the U.N. sanctions.

But the European threat was significant, even if the United States was not involved, said Omid Memarian, an Iran expert at DAWN, a Washington-based think tank that focuses on U.S. policy in the Middle East. “Preventing European countries from triggering the snapback mechanism is critical for Iran,” he said.

If the sanctions were reinstated, Memarian said, Iran would face severe economic pressure and an increasingly precarious security situation. “In such a scenario, hard-liners within the regime may push to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a move that could be interpreted by Israel as a green light for another round of military strikes,” he added.

The foreign ministries of the three European governments did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. But some in the Iranian government also view atomic weapons as a deterrent against perceived threats or attacks — concerns that have likely grown following Israeli and American military strikes last month. Western countries fear that a nuclear-armed Iran would further destabilize and increase tensions in the Middle East.

Iran has made major nuclear progress in recent years. Some of its highly enriched uranium is near-bomb-grade and could eventually produce up to 10 nuclear weapons, according to the IAEA.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

A top Iranian official warned on Wednesday that Iran could withdraw from a key nuclear nonproliferation treaty if Europe followed through on its threats to reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

The remarks, from Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, came during a rare on-the-record briefing with reporters in New York, where he was attending meetings at the United Nations. Mr. Gharibabadi laid out his country’s positions on a range of issues, setting the stage for nuclear talks with European counterparts in Istanbul on Friday.

Since negotiations between the United States and Iran collapsed in June as Israel launched a wave of attacks on Iran, setting off a 12-day war, Tehran has faced additional pressure from Europe about making concessions on its nuclear program.

Britain, France and Germany announced this month that they would enforce tough U.N. sanctions on Iran by the end of August if the country did not make concrete progress on a deal to limit its nuclear program. The mechanism for applying the sanctions is called a “snapback,” and it refers to a term in the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that allows parties to the deal to impose sanctions on Iran before the deal expires at the end of October this year if it has violated its terms.

Britain, France and Germany have agreed to restore punishing U.N. sanctions on Iran by the end of August if there is no concrete progress on a deal to limit its nuclear activities, according to Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot of France.

The announcement was part of an effort to push Tehran into renewed negotiations on restricting its nuclear program. Mr. Barrot said France and its partners that remain in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal were “justified in reapplying global embargoes on arms, banks and nuclear equipment that were lifted 10 years ago” under the deal, which expires in mid-October.

“Without a firm, tangible and verifiable commitment from Iran, we will do so by the end of August at the latest,” Mr. Barrot said on Tuesday in Brussels.

After Israel and the United States bombed Iranian nuclear sites last month, Iran suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors left. They try to monitor Iran’s nuclear program and its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, some of which is near-bomb-grade and could eventually produce up to 10 nuclear weapons, the agency has said.

Iran rejected the IAEA report, the latest move in years-long efforts to restrict its nuclear activities over fears that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

Tehran: Iran has issued a stern warning to European powers, stating it will retaliate against any move to reimpose sanctions following a United Nations nuclear watchdog report that shows a surge in the country’s enriched uranium stockpile.

The confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), seen by AFP, revealed that Iran has significantly increased its reserves of uranium enriched up to 60%, just below weapons-grade levels of 90%. The report estimates Iran’s total enriched uranium stockpile has now reached 9,247.6 kilograms, exceeding the limits set by the 2015 nuclear deal by over 45 times.

European nations have expressed concern and are reportedly considering reinstating sanctions, a move Tehran has vowed to respond to if carried out.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a statement he had told IAEA chief Rafael Grossi in a phone call that “Iran will respond to any inappropriate action by the European parties” to the 2015 agreement, referring to Britain, France and Germany.

The European trio have warned they could reimpose sanctions if they deemed Iran’s nuclear programme a threat to the continent’s security.

Araghchi urged Grossi in their Saturday call to stop “parties from exploiting the nuclear watchdog report” to advance their political objectives, according to the statement.

The IAEA Board of Governors is set to review Iran’s nuclear activities in its upcoming quarterly meeting in Vienna starting June 9.

Iran rejected the IAEA report, the latest move in years-long efforts to restrict its nuclear activities over fears that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

The Islamic Republic has denied seeking nuclear arms and says it needs the uranium for civilian power production.

The report was leaked as Iran and the United States have been engaged in negotiations towards a new nuclear deal, after Washington had unilaterally abandoned the agreement between Tehran and world powers in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first term.

Araghchi said on Saturday that he had received “elements” of a US proposal for a potential nuclear deal following five rounds of talks mediated by Oman.

Iran would respond “in line with the principles, national interests and rights” of its people, Araghchi added in a post on X.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the United States “has sent a detailed and acceptable proposal to the Iranian regime, and it’s in their best interest to accept it”, the New York Times reported.

The proposal was described as a series of bullet points rather than a full draft, according to the New York Times, citing officials familiar with the diplomatic exchanges.

It calls on Iran to stop all enrichment of uranium and proposes creating a regional grouping to produce nuclear power, which would include Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, as well as the United States.

Trump adopted a “maximum pressure” policy against Tehran after withdrawing from the 2015 agreement and reimposed sweeping sanctions that the deal had lifted in return for UN-monitored restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities.

Iran has ramped up its nuclear activities since the collapse of the deal, and is now enriching uranium to 60 per cent — far above the deal’s 3.67 per cent cap but below the 90 per cent needed for weapons-grade material.

The 2015 deal provides for the possibility of UN sanctions being reimposed through a mechanism called “snapback” if Iran fails to fulfil its commitments, an option that expires in October. AFP