Iran hurries away from nuclear obligations

LONDON - Iran on Sunday announced its fifth step back from a nuclear deal saying it will forego the "limit on the number of centrifuges", amid mounting tensions with the United States.

The announcement came after a US drone strike Friday killed top Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq, sparking fury in Iran which has vowed to avenge his death.

"Regarding the fifth step, decisions had already been made... but considering the current situation, some changes will be made in an important meeting tonight," said foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi on television prior to the announcement.

"In the world of politics, all things affect each other," he added.

Since President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the nuclear accord, Iran has gradually stripped itself of commitments to it.

Tehran has continued to threaten further distance from the agreement if European signatories to the deal fail to protect Iran’s economy from US sanctions.

In November, Iran gave Britain, France and Germany a third 60-day deadline to salvage the deal.

Soleimani killing 

The US on Friday killed the commander of the Revolutionary Guards' foreign operations Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike near Baghdad international airport that raised fears of a new war in the Middle East, to which Iran has vowed "severe revenge".

Trump had threatened Tehran on Saturday that his country had identified 52 sites in Iran that they could strike "very quickly and with great power” if the Islamic Republic attacked American targets or individuals, explaining that some of those sites are "at a very high level and important to Iran and Iranian culture.”

The Iranian army responded by jibing that the US lacks the ‘courage’ to live up to such threats.

On Saturday, at the peak of heightened tensions, France urged Iran to stick to the landmark 2015 nuclear accord.

"France fully shares with Germany the central objective of de-escalation and preservation of the Vienna (nuclear) accord," Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

With China, "we in particular noted our agreement... to urge Iran to avoid any new violation of the Vienna accord," he added.

The agreement has hung by a thread since the US withdrew it’s signature and reimposed sanctions, severely punishing Iran's economy. But since Soleimani’s killing it appears that now Tehran is looking to hurry back to nuclear proliferation, leaving the Vienna accord beyond repair.