Nuclear dispute: German top diplomat calls on Iran 'to build trust'

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on Wednesday called on Iran to grant UN-backed inspectors direct access to its nuclear facilities, as a dispute over whether the country is working on its own nuclear weapons continues.

"The German government expects Iran to build trust," Wadephul said in parliament following a phone call with his British and French counterparts.

Germany, France and the United Kingdom, known as the E3 and co-signatories of a 2015 Vienna nuclear deal, recently initiated the reintroduction of UN sanctions against Iran in order to increase diplomatic pressure on Tehran.

Wadephul urged Tehran to "finally allow full inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] on the ground in Iran so that it can be verified that there are no longer any enrichment programmes."

According to the minister, Iran has made "initial offers" to discuss the next steps, but Wadephul said Germany, France and Britain felt obliged to ensure that Iran never came into possession of nuclear weapons.

"If Iran comes into possession of a nuclear weapon, it will trigger a new arms race in the Gulf region," warned the minister. "We must prevent this at all costs."

Israel attacked Iran in June in what it said was an attempt at preventing the country from building a nuclear bomb. A week later the US joined the short war and bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. The West has accused Iran for years of seeking nuclear weapons, which Iran denies.

Before the war, the US had negotiated with Tehran for almost two months over its nuclear programme – without a breakthrough.

In 2018, US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Vienna deal during his first term in office. Iran therefore considers the reintroduction of sanctions under the UN mechanism to be illegal.

The Vienna-based IAEA has been negotiating with Iranian representatives for weeks about resuming inspections, mainly to clarify the whereabouts of more than 400 kilograms of uranium which the UN-backed agency says has a purity level that is almost suitable for nuclear weapons.

So far, Tehran has not said where this material is located or what condition it is in following the June attacks.