German leader says nuclear talks with Iran at ‘moment of truth’

dpa Munich Iran must not scupper negotiations to save the 2015 nuclear agreement, warned German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday, calling on Tehran to m...

dpa MunichIran must not scupper negotiations to save the 2015 nuclear agreement, warned German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday, calling on Tehran to make concessions.“The Iranian leadership now has a choice: now is the moment of truth,” Scholz said at the Munich Security Conference.“We have come a long way in the negotiations in Vienna in the last 10 months. All the elements for a conclusion of the negotiations are on the table,” Scholz said.However, he said, if Iran continues to enrich fuel and at the same time suspends monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), this is unacceptable.“An Iranian nuclear weaponization is unacceptable for us. Also because Israel’s security is not negotiable.” Therefore, he said, it had been repeatedly pointed out that it would now soon have to be decided whether a return to the 2015 nuclear agreement was still appropriate.“We now have the chance to reach an agreement that will allow the sanctions to be lifted,” Scholz said, but warned: “If we don’t manage to do this very quickly, the negotiations risk failing.” Germany, France and Britain, together with Russia and China, have been mediating between Iran and the United States for months. The aim is to lift US economic sanctions and, in return, to restrict Iran’s nuclear programme again. The next few weeks are considered crucial for whether the 2015 agreement can be revived.Under former US president Donald Trump, the United States had unilaterally withdrawn from the agreement. As a result, Tehran violated conditions of the agreement. Among other things, the Islamic Republic enriched uranium to a level that is no longer far from a weapons capability.Iran had recently declared that it did not want to give up its civilian nuclear programme.“Sooner or later, the country needs nuclear energy, and therefore a civilian nuclear programme is necessary and inevitable for us,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday. Iran will only use its nuclear programme for peaceful purposes - and not for a weapons programme, he said.But Iran’s enemies also wanted to ban the country from having a civilian nuclear programme, argued the leader, who according to the constitution has the final say in all strategic matters.