(Bloomberg) — French President Emmanuel Macron warned that Iran’s nuclear program is on a potentially irreversible course, nearing a point of no return.
“The acceleration of [Iran’s] nuclear program is leading us very close to the breaking point,” Macron said during a speech to French ambassadors in Paris on Monday.
The country has sufficient material to fuel a handful of warheads, should its government take the political decision to move toward nuclear weapons.
Iran announced last month it would increase its nuclear fuel-making capacity in response to a rebuke from the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency over Tehran’s failure to resolve a probe into uranium particles found at undeclared sites. Iran has maintained that its nuclear-development program is for energy purposes.
The IAEA is expected to produce a more comprehensive report as part of a broader western initiative to potentially reimpose or “snap back” UN sanctions on Iran before they expire in October 2025. That diplomatic mechanism was part of the now defunct nuclear deal that was abrogated in 2018 by then-president Donald Trump and which capped Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
“The Iranian question is undoubtedly one of the main issues on which we will be re-engaging in dialogue with the new American administration,” Macron said, referring to Trump’s return to the White House later this month.
Iran operates thousands of centrifuges that spin at high speed to separate uranium isotopes. The machines typically produce low-level reactor fuel but can be programmed to make higher concentrations of uranium suitable for a weapon.
Citing Iran’s support to Russia against Ukraine, Macron described Iran as the biggest strategic and security challenge for Europe and its allies.
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