- Iranian president has ruled out meeting US President until the US lifts sanctions on Iran.
- This statement came after French President has said that he would try to arrange a meeting between US President and Iran to ease the strained relationship between the two countries.
- The US and Iran have been locked in a stand-off since US unilaterally withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear accord Iran signed with world powers and imposed crippling sanctions.
- However,the other five nations including France has remained committed to the deal but Iran has started to increase its nuclear activity in response to the US reinstating economic sanctions.
- Hence,French President has urged US President to offer some sort of relief to Iran such as lifting sanctions on oil sales to China and India or establishing a new credit line to enable exports.
- Iran Nuclear deal was signed in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 group (US,UK, France, Russia, China and Germany).It restricts Iran’s nuclear programme in return for lifting most economic sanctions against it.
- The key provisions of the nuclear deal are (a)Limits on uranium enrichment (b)Limits on number of nuclear centrifuges (centrifuge is a device used to enrich uranium) (c)Restrictions on plutonium enrichment (d)Allowing International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) for inspections.
