The US urged the UN Security Council on Wednesday to unite in denouncing Iran's “brazen behaviour” in regard to its nuclear programme.
US President Donald Trump “has made clear that Iran's nuclear programme poses a threat to international peace and security, which the Security Council is charged with protecting”, the US mission said in a statement after a closed-door meeting.
“Iran continues to flagrantly defy the Security Council, violate its IAEA safeguards obligations, and ignore the clear and consistent concerns of both the Council and the international community.”
The US said it will maintain Mr Trump's “maximum pressure” strategy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and deny the Iranian regime of resources it uses to destabilise worldwide.
But China disputed that his policy would work. “Putting maximum pressure on a certain country is not going to achieve the goal,” China's UN ambassador, Fu Cong, told reporters before the Security Council meeting.
The private meeting was convened at the request of France, the UK, Greece, Panama, South Korea and the US in response to a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency about Iran’s production of highly enriched uranium.
The report highlighted a significant increase in Iran's nuclear activities, revealing that the country has increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity – a level close to the 90 per cent threshold required to make a nuclear weapon.
Britain's deputy ambassador to the UN, James Kariuki, told reporters that the UK will use “any diplomatic measures to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, and that includes the use of snapback if needed”.
Snapback refers to a mechanism through which all international sanctions against Iran can be reinstated if it is in breach of its 2015 agreement with world powers on its nuclear programme.
Iran's UN mission accused Washington of seeking to use the UN Security Council as a weapon “to escalate economic warfare against Iran”.
“This dangerous abuse must be rejected to protect the council's credibility,” Tehran said in a post on social media.
Iran had agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015 with Britain, Germany, France, the US, Russia and China. It enabled sanctions against Tehran to be lifted in exchange for limits on its nuclear programme.
However, in 2018, during Mr Trump's first term as president, Washington withdrew from the agreement, prompting Iran to gradually withdraw from its nuclear commitments.
Iran has always claimed that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, despite officials increasingly hinting at the possibility of developing nuclear weapons amid escalating tensions with the US over sanctions.