Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday [February 11] that “intensive, very intensive” contacts were underway between the “remaining parties” to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers – referring to Russia, Iran, China, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

Ryabkov said there had also been “contacts of all those parties with the United States in the last few days and weeks, since the arrival of the new administration.” The new US administration of President Joe Biden has pledged to revive the 2015 deal, known as the JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, from which President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.

Ryabkov called on Tehran “to be responsible, considering the situation surrounding the JCPOA,” according to Sputnik news agency’s Persian website. Russia joined other JCPOA signatories in December in calling on both the US and Iran to respect their commitments under the agreement.

Since 2019, Tehran has expanded its nuclear program beyond limits set by the agreement, in enriching uranium beyond 3.67 precent, using more advanced centrifuges and expanding its stockpile of enriched uranium. The Iranian parliament has also passed legislation, due to come into force this month, reducing the access of inspectors from the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Ryabkov said that while Moscow understood Tehran’s “frustration,” Russia urged Iran to show “self-control and responsible conduct.” Tehran’s extension of its atomic program has been widely seen as a means of pressure on the US to revive the JCPOA and lift draconian sanctions that have slashed Iran’s foreign currency earnings from oil exports and have pushed the economy into inflationary recession

Ryabkov said Iran’s production of uranium metal – a move cited in a confidential IAEA document reported by the Wall Street Journal on February 10 – showed Iran wanted “to send a clear signal that it will not tolerate the sanctions any longer.”

The clarity of the signal arises from the fact that while uranium in general has dual uses, for civil and potentially military purposes, uranium metal – which Iran began producing in its Esfahan facility on February 6, according to the IAEA document as reported by the Journal – has a particular association with nuclear bombs.

The Journal quoted Robert Einhorn, a former senior State Department official on proliferation issues, who like Ryabkov saw Iran’s move as a message to the Biden administration. “Although it’s only a small amount of natural uranium, the Iranians know that any production of uranium metal would rub against a raw nerve in Washington,” Einhorn said. “They seem to have decided to elevate the stakes in an effort to force the Biden administration to make a conciliatory move.”

In a statement Wednesday evening, an IAEA spokesman confirmed Iran had produced 3.6 grams of uranium metal as part of its “stated aim to produce fuel” for the Tehran research reactor. The statement said this was part of new research work that Iran had informed the agency about in January. Producing uranium metal was barred by the JCPOA.