April 14th, local time, the spokesman of the foreign ministries of Germany, France and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement, expressing “significant concern” about Iran’s plan to start producing enriched uranium with abundance of 60%.
The statement said that the “hearious development” was that the production of high-abundance enriched uranium was an important step in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, and Iran did not have a “trustworthy” civilian demand for high-enriched uranium. The three countries also expressed concern about Iran’s plan to add 1,000 centrifuges, which “will greatly improve Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity”.
The three countries said that in view of recent developments, they rejected any act to escalate the situation and called on Iran not to further complicate the situation.
In July 2015, Iran reached an Iran nuclear agreement with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany. Under the agreement, Iran promised to limit its nuclear program and enriched uranium to no more than 3.67%. In May 2018, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear agreement, restarted and added a series of sanctions against Iraq.
In May 2019, Iran began to gradually suspend the implementation of some provisions of the Iran nuclear agreement, but promised to take the measures “reversible”. On the 13th of this month, Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it planned to produce enriched uranium with a concentration of 60% from the 14th.
