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Chinese arms control chief urges world to keep calm after Iran breaches nuclear deal
- Beijing’s arms control chief appeals for calm and says there is no need to overreact over Tehran’s decision to violate limits on uranium enrichment
- Iran’s actions were in response to US decision to quit international agreement last year
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There is no need to panic about Iran’s moves to stockpile uranium because the amount in question does not raise the risk of proliferation, China’s arms control chief has said.
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Fu Cong, the Chinese foreign ministry’s head of arms control affairs, told a meeting of the United Nations nuclear watchdog in Vienna on Wednesday that “we should not overreact to the actions taken by Iran because, in our view, these actions do not incur any proliferation risks and they do not contravene Iran's obligation under the safeguard agreement”.
Iran had previously threatened to start breaching the limits agreed under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in response to the US decision to pull out of the deal last year.
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On Wednesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board was told that inspectors had verified that Iran’s low-enriched uranium stockpiles had exceeded the 3.67 per cent limit agreed under the deal, reaching 4.5 per cent.
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