weapons-grade uranium

Iran’s foreign ministry confirmed the country’s nuclear issue has been discussed by the US and Russia but said nothing will happen without Iranian involvement.

“(Iran’s nuclear issue) has been discussed (between Russia and the US) as an international issue, but what matters is that whatever is to be done about Iran’s nuclear issue will definitely not be done without Iran’s opinion,” said the ministry’s spokesman Esmail Baghaei.

“Our Russian friends are fully aware of that,” he said at a briefing on Monday.

US and Russian officials had bilateral talks in February in their most extensive high-level engagement since Moscow launched it’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2

After the meeting of the representatives from Moscow and Washington, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov visited Iran – sparking speculation that he briefed officials in Tehran about the talks with the US.

Baghaei’s comments come on the same day that a former Iranian foreign minister key to the country’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers reportedly resigned from the government of reformist Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

That deal was an agreement to limit the Iranian nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief and other provisions

The resignation of Mohammad Javad Zarif signalled Tehran’s rapid retreat from its outreach to the West as US President Donald Trump intensifies sanctions on the country.

The news comes after Iran’s parliament on Sunday impeached Finance Minister Abdolnasser Hemmati, who once ran for the presidency signalling he’d be willing to talk to the US president directly.

While lawmakers focused their criticism of Hemmati over Iran’s plummeting currency, his removal underscored the danger faced by Pezeshkian – who won the presidential election last year promising to reach out to the West to get sanctions lifted.

Iran has accelerated its production of near weapons-grade uranium, according to a report by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog seen by The Associated Press.

Iran says its programme is peaceful, but the US says Tehran has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”

Israel and the US have said they won’t allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, threatening the possibility of further escalation after Tehran twice attacked Israel during its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.